LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




0QD13'=it.ti45A 



Class 




Book - ^^ b 



COKRIGHT DEPOSnV 



AN AMERICAN TRAMP 



IN SCOTLAND. 



^' v^v 



O' 



H''\0'l 






BY 

WEARY BEN. 



Copyright, 1897, 
By the Author. 



.CrSC 



PAGE 



C CONTENTS. 

r — 

- CHAPTER I. 

Hard Times, Rocks, . . . . i 

CHAPTER H. 
Packing My Saratogas, &c , . . . 14 

CHAPTER HI. 

Steerage to Glasgow, . . . . 25 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Storm — Seasick, . . . . 37 

CHAPTER V. 

The Debut in Scotland, . . . 50 

CHAPTER VI. 

Gittin' a Square Meal, - • • 59 

CHAPTER VIL 
Lookin Fer a Furnished Rqom, . . 67 



IV. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Glasgow, 73 

CHAPTER IX 
Dancing in der Green, ... 78 

CHAPTER X. 
Takin' in a Show, .... 86 

CHAPTER XI. 
Mr. Burns, the Pote, .... 92 

CHAPTER Xn. 
Home Again, 100 



CHAPTER I. 

HARD TIMES, ROCKS. 

The times have been pretty tough of late, 
neighbor, pretty tough ; and no mistake. What's 
getting into the country, anyway ; is it going to the 
dogs entirely ? It looks that way ; it looks that 
way. I have never seen the times the way they are 
now and may I never see 'em that way again, for 
it's awful ; awful's no name for it. 

There has been a panic on, or, as some folks calls 
it, a financial depression, and it has been playing 
hades with things in general. Banks and business 
houses have been busting up, the work-shops have 
shut down, railroads and other things haven't been 
paying divvies, the working-people aint got no 
work — tell you what, things is in pretty bad shape. 
Those who have got a little money laid up are stick- 
ing closer to it than fleas to a yaller dog, for they 
don't know how soon they'll go broke or whether 
they'll ever be able to earn any more. Instead of 
living on fizz and red-headed ducks they have come 
down to chuck-steak and kidney-stew, and the little 
poorhouse over the hill is looming up in their visions. 
Their's is a bad case — a bad case. Guess we'll have 
to pass the hat around for them. The working- 
folks have been living on wind and scenery mostly, 
and such chuck as the city authorities hand out to 
them, and they are the ones who suffer most. Many 
a one has got so down-hearted that he jumped over- 
board ; and many a one feels like doing it, but he 
don't do it, and why, I don't know. We are all 



living in hopes of something better, and hope that 
the times will get better soon, for they have been 
bad so long that some kind of a change must come. 
We have waited for it over three years now, and 
that is a pretty long time to wait when you come to 
look at it. Three years of misery, of woe, of 
starvation and of raggedness, is three eternities. 
What brought on this measly panic, I'd like to 
know? Some say it was one thing and some say 
it was another, but most people say politics done it. 
I guess they're right, too, for it was politics. Politics 
be darned, say I. What good is it anyway? Every 
four years we have to put a lot of chumps in office, 
and they rob us, and when the four years is up they 
git fired, and we have to put in a lot of other 
chumps, and they get worse than the others. The 
party that is in says the party that is out won't let 
'em do what they want, and the party that is out 
says that the party what is in is a set of horse_ 
thieves, cut-throats and robbers. May the whole 
crowd of them be blowed. Between the two of 
them the people are suffering and they don't know 
what to do. The people are mighty patient though, 
and stand it all like drum-majors. It's a wonder 
they don't kick and kick hard. Some of the poli- 
ticioners better look out, though, for when they do 
kick the fur will fly. Mind now, I'm a telling you. 
This, ahem — financial depression, has been having 
a mighty bad effect on me, I kin tell you. See what 
it has done for me, will you ! It has knocked me 
out of house and home, threw me out of a job, and 
for years I have been a bum, a vagabond — call me 
anything you like. I have gone hungry and bare, 



have slept in bams and out-houses, I have been 
what you might call insective, I have worn a shirt 
for months — well, let us not go too deep into details. 
My friends say I wont work. Do you hear that? 
They say I won't work. Holy smoke ; me not work ! 
And me praying for it every day as hard as I can 
and looking for it, and hoping every minute I'll get 
it. Me not work? But that's the way with folks; 
when a man is down they all jump on him and 
haven't a good word to say for him. Because he 
looks like a bum they say he is a bum, and give him 
a bad name. Well, never mind ; every dog has his 
day, they say, and perhaps this dog will have his'n 
some day. Stranger things than that have hap- 
pened. Me not work, hey? Hold on now, and I'll 
tell you where I have been to look for work. I 
have traveled through York State, through Jersey, 
Pennsylvany, Ohio, Injany, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, 
Kansas, Montana, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Cali- 
forny. New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Louisiany, 
Missouri, and almost every State and Territory in 
the Union, but wherever I went the times was hard 
and the cry was '' no work and no money." The 
condition of the country is awful. The farmers 
aint gittin nothing for what they raise, the store- 
keepers aint selling nothing, there aint no money in 
sight, the working people is mostly idle and things 
is at a standstill. Everyone is in the dumps. Kin 
I git work when no one else aint got it ? Kin I ? 

I suppose you think I travelled in Pullman sleep- 
ers and dining cars while sashaying around the 
country, but if you think that, you are laboring 
under a slight mistake. I didn't. I hoofed it over 



the railroad ties, and when no one was looking I 
shinned on top of the cars ; I rode the brakes and 
bumpers and tried to get along the best way I could. 
What did 1 do for grub ? Why, rustled for it, of 
course. What else? I didn't stop at no hotels. 
Catch me starvin, though, when chuck can be had 
for the askin. I lived on " hand outs " mostly, and 
when I couldn't get them I lived on wind and 
scenery. Many a time I nearly starved and went 
without grub for days, but when I couldn't stand it 
any longer I told people so, and they helped me out. 
I mixed in with other bums along the road, and what 
they had they shared with me ; and when I could 
get an odd job here and there I took it, so you see 
I am no professional vag> anyway. 

Oh, what adventures I have had ; and if I were to 
tell you all about them you wouldn't believe me, but 
they're true, every one of them. I got pretty well 
acquainted with the Digger Indians ; I was pretty 
thick with the Mormons ; I was a cowboy for awhile ; 
I worked in brick yards, on the railroads, on the 
streets in some of the larger towns out West, around 
private houses, and turned a hand at anything to 
earn an honest dollar. I didn't earn many of them, 
though. Mighty few; mighty few. I had a hard 
time of it getting over the Rockies. It was late in 
the fall when I set out on my trip, and the weather 
was getting pretty chilly. I wasn't dressed warm 
and I made most of the trip over the Rockies on top 
of a freight car. When the train got up pretty high 
the wind blowed like the old Harry and it whistled 
through my carcass as if I didn't have a bone 
or a bit of flesh in my body. I clung to the car 



5 

and held on for dear life, for if I hadn't, I would 
have been swept off. I layed that way twenty-four 
hours nearly, and when I got the chance I skinned 
off of that car in a hurry, I kin tell you. It was a 
fast train and I was nearly dead when I lit. One 
night I jumped a freight in Wyoming and rode the 
brakes. It was a cold, clear night, and the braky 
got onto me. He told me to come off the perch 
and took my coat from me. That made the night a 
darn sight colder for me. It was on the prairies, 
miles from, nowhere, the air smelled keen and frosty, 
there wasn't a house within miles of me, there wasn't 
a tree anywhere, and only sage-brush and a clump 
of willows was around. There was a smell of dead 
leaves in the air that made me think of dead folks, 
and I got mighty lonesome. " Oh, if I was only out 
of this," thought I, " or if it was only daylight." 
I heard some crashing in the trees and sage brush 
near by and I didn't know what to think of it. I 
heerd wolves and cayotes and other varmint making 
noises around me and I felt pretty lemoncholy, I kin 
tell you. " My time's come," thought I. I didn't 
say a word but just sat down on the track and 
waited for the varmint to come for me. They 
didn't come, so I got tired of waiting for them. It 
was too cold to sit there, and as I was freezing, I up 
and runs. If the varmint had come for me I dont 
know what I would have done. Skedaddled all the 
harder, I guess. I found my coat the next morning 
miles from where I had been bounced from the 
train, lying on the railroad track where the brake- 
man throwed it, and I guess he had no use for it. 
It may have been too lively for him. 



The cowboys in Wyoming treated me first rate. 
They gave me a job as herder and I stuck to it for 
awhile. The first night they put me on, they gave 
me a big bunch of cattle to herd. There must have 
been a good many hundreds in the bunch, and one 
of the cowboys loaned me his ulster and pony and 
his weapins. But I had no use for the weapins. 
This was near Rock Spring or Rock Creek, Wyom- 
ing. It was a fine moonlight night and the cattle 
thought they might as well get up and graze a little. 
They did so and I had to ride around them to keep 
them from straying away. There was so many of 
them though, and it took me so long to ride around 
them that by the time I got where I started from the 
leaders had wandered further and further away. I 
shouted and whooped and yelled, but it was no use. 
They didn't give a cuss for a tenderfoot like me. I 
got scared, so I rode back to camp, woke up the 
sleeping cowboys and told them what the difficulty 
was. There was some pretty tall cussing then but 
they didn't blame me but dressed in a hurry, saddled 
their ponies, mounted and rode away after the cattle 
with me after them at the tail end. One homely 
looking critter in the shape of a steer was leading the 
others astray, and when he saw the cowboys coming 
for him he elevated his tail and ran like a streak, with 
the cowboys after him full tilt. Such a whooping 
and yelling there was, but the steer only ran the 
harder. One of the cowboys says, says he, "I'll fix 
that son-of-a-sea-cook," and with that he out with 
his rope, uncoils it, throws it and it lights over the 
horns of the steer. The pony who knew what was 
coming braced himself for the shock, and when the 



rope tautened, over went the ornery brute of a steer 
flat on his back with a jar that shook the earth. 
He got up and shook his head as if he wanted to 
know where he was at or what struck him. Per- 
haps he thought it was greased lightning or that the 
rope was loaded. Anyway, the throw took the 
ugliness out of him and he came along with the rest 
of the cattle as meek as a lamb. 

Some folks think cowboys are tough citizens. 
Well, they aint. They are as free-hearted a set as 
you will find the world over, and if they can do you 
a good turn they'll do it every time. They will give 
you anything they've got and you are as welcome 
to it as the sun that shines. Of course there may be 
bad citizens among them, but you will find mean 
cusses everywhere. As a rule they are a hard work- 
ing, tip-top set of fellows, and as I said before the 
best they've got aint too good for you. I didnt stay 
with them long for I couldn't stand the ridin'. 
That's out of my line of business. Some people 
may think it's easy to rope a steer. Let 'em try it. 
It's a business, that has to be learnt from the ground 
up and it's a hard business learning. Many are 
brought up to it from boyhood. 

Utah is a bang-up country and the Mormons is 
fine folks. I've been with them and I know 'em. 
I've been in Salt Lake, Nauvoo, Ogden and other 
Mormon cities, and the Mormon cities is way on top 
for beauty. The streets are as wide as four city 
streets, and along them on both sides are thick 
shade trees. Creeks rush by the sidewalks with a 
noise like thunder, for they come straight down 
from the mountains and are as clear and cold as ice. 



8 

The houses are wide, roomy and old fashioned and 
smell rustic like, and each house is set in a large 
garden of its own in which is fruit trees and shade 
trees, and it's a great country for apples. Mormons 
like apples and cider and ladies. The Mormons 
came originally from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, 
England and some other northern European coun- 
tries, I believe, and they are cute fellers. You can't 
coon 'em. The law says they dassent have more 
than one wife but they have 'em just the samee. 
They catch 'em on the fly and get tied to 'em, or 
"sealed," as they calls it. If a Mormon has money 
he can get all the women he wants and he can keep 
'em too. I wonder if he takes in the mother-in-law 
as well? If he does, I guess he has a pretty lively 
time of it. One mother-in-law of the right sort can 
make it powerful interesting for a feller, but a whole 
bunch of 'em must be kind of paralyzin.' Excuse 
me / I wouldn't mind having a wife or two, one 
for every day and one for Sunday, but if the 
mother-in-law is thrown in, I pass. I aint so dead 
stuck on^ women as all that. The Mormons were 
very kind to me for they gave me work and plenty 
to eat, and paid me up to the handle, so I cant kick, 
but kin give 'em a good recommend. Their State 
is a fine one and they have it cultivated to the 
ninety-nines. The soil is very rich and they can 
grow anything and everything, and the scenery is 
truly beautiful. Beautiful aint no name for it. 
They have fine mountains and rivers and lakes and 
valleys and sich, and it's a real paradise. Next to 
Californy it's the finest State in the Union. The 
Mormons knew what they were doing when they lit 



9 

on it. Anyone who has been in Utah will tell you 
I aint stretchin it. 

I wasnt dead stuck on Nevady or Arizony or New 
Mexico, but I was on Utah and Californy. Nevada 
is all prairie and bare mountain, Arizona ditto, and 
New Mexico ditto, but in the last two States there 
is deserts that would make any man tired. I had 
all I wanted of them, riding through 'em, for I nearly 
choked with sand and died with thirst, and it was 
hotter there than where Nickie lives. I'll bet Nick 
wouldnt mind living there. 

Californy though is the State. Now you're 
shoutin.' My langwidge aint able to describe it. 
I aint hefty on describin', so Californy git's me. 
It's fine, superfine, elegant — what more kin I say ? 
Squashes grow there as big elephants, grapes grow 
there as big as peaches, peaches grow there as big 
as mush-melons, turnips grow there as big as bushel- 
baskets, and beets ditto, radishes grow there as big 
round as your arm, and as for pears, plums, apricots, 
oranges and sich, you know what they are. Trees 
grow as big as a row of houses, bushes look like 
trees and the land is running over with milk and 
honey. Some folks may think this is a fairy tale, 
but it aint. It's the naked truth, so help me. Why 
would I lie ? I dont own no land there and I aint 
gittin paid for booming the place. As for gold the 
mountains is full of it, and all you have to do is to 
find it. The Californians are the best people on 
God's footstool. There aint none like 'em. Havent 
I been with 'em? Dont I know? If I dont, who 
does? I didnt get any ^'hand outs" there, but sat 
down to the table with the hired help and we lived 



10 

there. We dined on chicken, all kinds of meat, bis- 
cuits, butter, salmon, coffee, tea, pie, cakes — oh we 
lived there. And when night came I hunted up the 
dry side of a hay-stack and slept there all night 
without a shiver, although it was winter. Yes, give 
me Californy. It's the land of tramps and flowers. 
What flowers and tramps has to do together I dont 
know, but they are there in Californy, thick as bees. 

Every true Californian welcomes a stranger with 
open arms whether he has got money or not, and if 
he aint got no money he is all the more welcome- 
They are mighty good to the stranger, no matter 
what his color, race or religion is, and their houses 
is always open to him. I was in San Francisco, 
Sacramento, Marysville, Los Angeles and other 
cities and they are beauts ; beauts aint no name for 
it. San Francisco is a frisky place — perhaps a little 
too frisky for quiet, Sunday-go-to-meeting folks, but 
she's the capital of the slope and gay folks rush 
there from all over. 

Some of my little adventures with other knights 
of the road might make powerful interestin' reading, 
but this piece of work is written for another pur- 
pose, so I'll have to let up. The knights are slick 
ones, I'm a telling you, and what they dont know 
aint worth knowing, though they dont say much to 
outsiders Git 'em in a corner all by themselves 
though and you'll find they know this country like a 
book from end to end, and why shouldnt they ? 
Aint they travellin over it all the time ? They know 
it from Maine to Californy and from Minnesoty to 
Texas, and they kin spin yarns till you cant rest. 
And all their yarns is true, too, A hobo wouldnt 



II 

lie unless he's got an object, and if it's only infor- 
mation you're wantin' he'll give it to you straight. 

As I was a telling you, I travelled over the 
country myself a little and I seen a few things, but I 
cant tell all about 'em here. I never knew this 
country was so big till I travelled over it and I tell 
you what she's a corker. You kin travel for days 
and days over one State and see nothing but prairies 
and prairies and prairies till you git tired of 'em, and 
then you kin wander over other States and see noth- 
ing but sand and meshskeet bush and cactus ; you 
kin hoof it over mountains for months in some 
States till you git tired, and then you wont see the 
end of them. Yes, it's a great country, a great 
country, and no mistake. If I was President of it, 
I'd scoop it all in and light out. I'd- take it to 
Yurrup with me maybe and live on the proceeds for 
awhile. 

I seen so much of it that I got tired of it and 
I made up my mind I'd go East again and see how 
the times was there. They was hard and no better 
than before ; nary bit. Work was hard to git and 
money was tighter than ever, so I thought I'd light 
out again somewhere. Travelling is a disease that's 
mighty hard to shake, and once you git it, it sticks 
to you, but if I could git steady work somewhere I 
wouldnt think of travelling no more. Odd jobs though 
are the best I could do. 

I have hearn 'em say that Yurrup is a mighty fine 
place, so I guess I'll go there. I kin work my way 
there, I'm told, by working down in the coal-hole on 
a ship, or feeding cattle, but them kind of jobs dont 
suit me. Feeding cattle is all right but I dont know 



12 

about feeding 'em on a ship. I never been on a 
ship and I dont know how I'd stand it. If they 
dont soak a feller too heavy for the price of a passage 
over I may work till I git enough money and go. 
What I'll do when I git on the other side I dont 
know, but I suppose I'll find all about it when I git 
there. I'll travel for one thing and see the country, 
and if I kin strike a job I'll take it, and if I cant I'll 
have to git along without it and rustle for grub as I 
have done home. Some fellers tells me I'll git 
jugged if I travel in the old country without money, 
but I dont believe 'em. They're kiddin. There's 
many poor folks and bums over there and why dont 
they git jugged ? Say, I've travelled, I have, and 
you cant coon me. I've been through the mill and 
I know what's what. I never was in the old country, 
of course, and aint got no friends there, but I kin git 
troo all the same. Why not? I've got friends at 
home and what good is they to me? That's what I 
want to know. If a feller what kin travel through 
the United States and kin live on wind and scenery 
cant travel through the old country, then he's a 
tenderfoot and better stay home with his mammy. 
If I make up my mind to go, I'll go, and all hell 
wont stop me. Ef I go to England maybe I'll call 
on old Queen Victorey and see how she's gitten 
along, for they tell me she's gitting old and feeble- 
I dont know her personally but she's a good woman 
they say, and I'll drop in on her just for luck. 

I may take a run over and see his royal nibs the 
Keyser William, who aint no slouch when it comes 
to fighting and sparring, and if I happen to be 
around I may call on that Dago King, King Hum- 



13 

bert, ef it's meal time, and on the Saw of Roosia, 
too. I may call when dey's least expecting me. 
There's lots of jukes and grand jukesses over there 
and I may call on 'em all too. If I go I'll have a 
rip-snorting, raring, tearing good time of it, yer kin 
bet on that, and PU make things hum. 



14 



CHAPTER II. 

PACKING MY SARATOGAS, ETC. 
Say, stranger, New York aint no slouch of a place, 
there cant be no mistake about that. Its a big city 
a fine city, a city full of people, and you kin go there 
anyday and see a big crowd of people rushing one 
way and a bigger crowd rushing the other way, and 
you'd think there was a prize fight on or a dog fight 
or something like that, but its that way all the time. 
People are always in such a hurry that they haven't 
got time to say good morning to you, kiss me foot 
or anything else, but they give you a look and rush 
on and say nothing. It isnt a jay-town, and if you 
take the New Yorkers for jays you'll git left for they 
are fly, and no mistake. Ghost stories dont go with 
them for they've heern 'em before and you've got to 
work or git out If you cant git work that's your 
funeral but not their'n It's a hard city but it's a 
great one and it's got all the conveniences. It's got 
lodging-houses and joints till you cant rest, and if 
you aint got the price of a lodgin' you can sleep in 
a waggin, in an arey-way, in a cellar or any other 
place that's handy. No one will disturb you if they 
dont see you, but keep your eyes peeled for the 
coppers, for if they see you they will slap your feet 
with a big stick they carry, and some of 'em hits 
hard. I have been in New York before but it's 
different now from what it used to be. At one time 
it was a real lively place and a fellow could have 
more fun there than he could shake a stick at, but 



15 

now it's got kind of pious-like and people have got 
so solemn that they ask you to drop in at noontime 
to pray with them. The Bowery, Chatham Square, 
and the Sixth Avenue used to be a rip-snorting lively 
place and life there was pretty rapid, but things aint 
what it used to be, not what it used to be by a long 
shot. The dance-houses and concert-halls are ali 
closed up, the fast-houses aint there no more, the 
theayters where a fellow could go in and see a show 
for nothing and get a beer for a nickel is gone too, 
and the whole city is different from what it used to 
be, although its all there and more of it. Even the 
Bowery aint what it used to be. There's a song 
they've got up now which says : 

•• The Bowery, the Bowery 
They say such things and they do such things, 
On the Bowery, the Bowery, 

I'll never go there any more," 

is a lie, a blamed lie, for they dont do anything 
strange on the Bowery, and they dont say nothing 
strange on the Bowery, the Bowery, not any more 
anyway. The whole darn street has got so sober- 
like, so good and so respectable that if it wasn't for 
the piles of Hebrews there, you'd think it was Sun- 
day. Hebrews and Dagos are thick there, and the 
street is full of high-toned stores that look as if their 
owners were millionaires. Maybe they are, for I 
dont know that they aint, for they look that way 
anyway. I remember the time when you could get 
a haircut on the Bowery for a nickel with a schooner 
of beer thrown in, but now a haircut costs ten cents 
and if you ask for a schooner they'll tell you to go 
and buy one. No, the Bowery's gone down hill 



i6 

there cant be no two ways about that. When I was 
there before you could get a schooner for a nickel, 
with pigs-feet, tripe, bologney, pickles and sich 
thrown in, but now you dont git nothin' but the 
schooner, and if you want any grub you have to pay 
for it. New York is going down hill I'm a tellin 
you, and it aint what it used to be, not by a long 
shot. Chicago is getting ahead of it mighty fast, 
and no wonder. They aint so good and pious there. 
New Yorkers get huffy when you say Chicago to them 
but what good does that do 'em ? Chicago is get- 
ting ahead of them and they cant expect nothing else 
the way they run things nowadays. They wont even 
let a feller do a little spieling nowadays, for they've 
closed all the dance-halls, and when a fellow goes to 
a dance with his chippie, he has to hold her at arms- 
length and mustn't say prunes to her. I dont think 
even the chippie likes this, but what kin she do ? 
It's my opinion that New York is going to the dogs 
and it ought to. The people there are on the grab 
for money, and that's all they care for. If you've 
got money you're somebody, and if you aint got 
none you're nobody. The old clothin' fellows on 
the Bowery if they think you got money, will drag 
you in, and when they find out you aint got none 
they'll kick you out If you go on Broadway and 
aint well dressed the coppers will dog you and take 
you for a thief, and maybe run you in. What kind 
of a way of doing business is that ? 

One day I went down to Bowling Green, which is 
opposite Castle Garden, New York, to find out what 
a ticket to Yurrup would cost. I strolled around 
careless-like, keeping my eyes peeled for steamship 



17 

offices, and pretty soon I came to the Anchor Line 
office, when I stopped and gazed at the signs^ 
While I was gazing, a seedy-looky chap comes up to 
me, and says he : 

"Say, pardner, do yer want to go to Yurrup? I 
kin sell yer a ticket." 

" The hell you kin," says I ; *' Where did you get 
it?" 

*' Who, me ? " says he ; " Why, I works for a ticket 
agency." 

*' What ticket agency ?" says I. 

." A ticket agency around the corner," says he. 

I didn't take no stock in him but to jolly him, I 
says to him, says I : '' What's the fare to Yurrup ? " 
He grinned and says, says he : " What part of Yer- 
rup ? " (He pronounced Yurrup different from me.) 

" What difference does that make ? Aint the fare 
to Yurrup all the same ?" says I. 

" Not by a jug-full," says he, '' it aint. I kin take 
yer to Liverpool for twenty-five dollars, and that's 
dirt cheap." 

" Twenty-five dollars," says I, " What do you take 
me for, John Jacob Astor?" 

''I dontknow nuthin' about that," says he, *' but 
I kin take yer ter Liverpool cheaper ner anyone else, 
and yer'U git bang-up grub going over and a tony 
bed ter sleep in, and yer'U be over there before you 
know it; our ships go fast." 

" I aint saying nothing against that, pardner," 
says I, "but I aint going over just now." With 
that I shook him. The darned fakir ! If I'd have 
bought a ticket from him, I guess I'd never seen 
Yurrup. I watched him till he turned the corner 



i8 

and then I sneaked over to the Anchor Line office. 
When I got in the office I asked a gent who was sit- 
ing at a desk behind the counter " what's the fare to 
Yurrup, boss? " 

" What part of Yurrup ? " says he. 

''Any part," says I. 

" We kin take you to Glasgow, Belfast, Liverpool 
or Londonderry for fifteen dollars," says he, " and to 
other places at very low rates." 

" That's pretty cheap," says I, '' when you've got 
the money, but I aint got the money just now." 

'* What did you come here for then ? " says he. 

'^ For information," says L 

*' Oh ! that's it!" says he. *' Well, come here 
when you've got the money, and we'll take you to 
Yurrup in good shape." 

" All right," says I, '' I'll do it, ta ta ! " 

By scrimpin' and savin' I saved up twenty dollars 
in the course of time, and with that sum I presented 
myself again one fine day at the Anchor Line office, 
and had another litttle talk with the gent 

" Well, boss," said I, '* I've got the money this 
time; I guess I'll go to Yurrup.'' 

" Where do you want a ticket to?" said he in a 
business like way. 

'' Lemme see, now," said I, '' where did you say I 
could go to for fifteen dollars?" 

" To Belfast, Liverpool, Glasgow or Londonderry.'' 

*' Where does the ship land ? " said I. 

'' She lands at all of them places," 

*' No, I mean how far does she go ? " 

" She goes to Glasgow," 

*' That's the last stop ? " says I, 



19 

" Yes," says he. 

" And the fare is fifteen dollars ? " says I. 

*' Yes," says he. 

** Here's your money then," says I ; " give me a 
ticket " I dont know no one in Belfast or London- 
derry or Belfast or Glasgow, and it's all the same to 
me where I land, but while I'm travellin' 1 might as 
well go the limit." 

The gent took down my name, pedigree, etc., 
and soon had a ticket made out for me. He next 
asked me if I didn't want any British money, and I 
told him I did — five dollars worth. He fired a lot of 
silver coins on the counter for me, but what their 
value was I didn't know. I felt kind of skittish 
about them, but I kind of thought they wouldn't 
flam me in such a place, so I raked the coin in my 
pocket and said nothing. I was about to leave the 
office, but I thought to ask the gent : 

" When does the ship sail ? " 

" To-morrow morning at nine o'clock, from the 
foot of West 24th Street, North River," said he, 

" What's the name of the ship? " says I. 

" The Furnessia," says he. 

" All right, boss, I'll be there," says I. 

I suppose because I looked seedy he took me for 
a drinking man, for he says to me before I got out : 

"You'd better be there on time, young feller, for 
if you dont you'll get left. The ship waits for no 
man." 

" I didn't ask her to wait for me, did I ? " says I, 
kind of huffy like. " I'll be there on time and dont 
you forgit it." With that I clears out. 

Well, I had gone and done it — blowed in all my 



20 

money for a trip to Yurrup. Was I happy after I 
done it ? Cant say as I was particularly, for I was 
kind of oneasy-like at the thought of leaving my own 
country, and I didn't know how I'd find things on 
the other side. Some of my mates was jollying me 
all along about the old country, and telling me things 
to take the notion out of me. I acknowledge I was 
a litle bit uneasy just then, but I knew that that 
feeling would wear off when I got on the road for 
I've felt that way before before starting out on a 
trip. I said I blowed in all my money. Excuse 
me. I take that back. I didn't. I had fifteen 
cents in American money left. As this would be no 
use to me in the old country, I concluded to spend 
it. I invested five cents in a schooner, and ten cents 
in a hunk of bologney which I thought would be a 
good thing to take along with me on the voyage as 
a kind of bracer or tonic in case the ship's grub 
didn't agree with me. I would have liked to take 
along some mustard, too, to take away the taste of 
bad vittels, but where was the mon? Never mind ; 
I guess we kin pull through without mustard. 
Them.'s luxuries, anyway. 

The next thing on the bill of fare was to pack up. 
I owned seventeen Saratogas, two band-boxes, a 
green parrot and a dirty white poodle ; nit ! I'm no 
dude, and when I travel I dont carry a lot of traps 
with me. I am too old a hand for that. When I go 
travelling I carry nothing except what I kin pick up 
along the wayside. I didn't expect to pick up any- 
thing going over the ocean, but there's no telling 
what a fellow may stumble over. I didn't take a 
thing with me except the bologney, and that was 



21 

tied up in a brown paper parcel with a string around 

it. 

I didn't sleep much that night. Visions kept float- 
ing through my mind about the old country, about 
the ship, about home, about my friends and other 
things, and I only took cat naps. I was afraid I'd 
lose the ship. I didn't want to lose her for that 
would have made me feel worse that anything. To 
make sure of her I got up as soon as it was daylight, 
and washed my face and combed my hair, and then 
read the paper for awhile. I left my lodging long 
before six o'clock and it was a cloudy, raw morning, 
and the streets was deserted except for stray dogs that 
was playing with each other, and all the people was 
still in bed sleeping. A saloon or two was open, but 
the stores was all shut tight and you'd think the city 
wasn't inhabited. I took my time and wandered 
down to the river where the ship was. I got to the 
pier a little after six o'clock and though it was early 
there was a lot of emigrants there, waiting to get on 
board. I mixed in with the gang and waited too. 
I didn't have no baggage with me, and some of the 
emigrants took me for a pick-pocket, I guess, the 
way they looked at me. I wasn't dressed up like a 
dude like some of them, but I felt that I was as good 
as they was, so I let 'em scowl and stare. To judge 
from the brogue of some of these people, I knew 
they was Irish and some of them was Scotch, and 
some maybe was Roosian, for they talked in a foreign 
lingo that I couldn't understand. They wasn't 
Dagoes though, I'm sure of that, for I kin tell 
Dagoes when I see 'em by the way they talks with 
their hands and the way they looks. I kin tell Irish 



22 

too, but I ain't so sure of Scotch. The Scotch is 
quiet-like and dont say much. The Scotch lingo is 
something like Irish, but it ain't the same. There's 
more of a accent to it, I guess. I'd call the Irish 
lingo a brogue, but the Scotch is an accent. Lots of 
emigrants was there that morning, large as life and 
standing around impatient-like, waiting to go on 
board. The pier was a great big one, maybe 500 
foot long and pretty broad, and it was all covered 
over with a roof. There was piles of boxes here and 
there till you couldn't rest, and barrels and crates 
and bales and sich. If I had all the money they was 
worth I'd travel all over the world. It was kind of 
cosy-like under that shed, for outside the weather 
was raw and nasty, but here it was nice and comfort- 
able. They wouldn't let me in the shed until I 
showed my ticket, but as soon as I showed it, the 
shed-boss who was dressed in a blue suit with brass 
buttons, looked at me grave-like and told me to go 
in. I suppose he was wonderin' what a cuss like me 
wanted to go travellin' for. Pooty soon I got tired 
of standing around, so I walked along the shed 
taking in the sights. I couldn't see much of the 
ship, for the shed was walled in and there was only 
two open doors where I could see a part of the ship. 
I seen a long gangway at the tail end of the shed 
that connected with the ship, and as I seen some 
passengers go on board that way, I followed them. 
When I walked up the plank to the ship, an officer 
stopped me and asked me if I was a cabin passenger. 
'* Of course I am," said I. ** Let me see your ticket," 
said he. I showed it to him and he told me to git 
down again and go where the steerage passengers 



23 

was. I didn't want to git into no argument with 
him just then, for there was too many people around. 
But wasn't I a cabin passenger as well as the rest ? 
My ticket said " third cabin." I had to walk down 
the plank again. Some people when they wear brass 
buttons and epulets, likes to show their authority 
and I guess this chap liked to show his'n. I would 
have liked to talk to him, though. Bye-and-bye I 
sees the emigrants making a grand rush for the plank, 
and up they goes on board the ship, so I got in the 
push and goes up with them. When I got on deck a 
young feller in a white jacket and a peak cap says to 
me, says he, " Are you a married or single man ?" I 
didn't know as it was any of his business, so I looked 
at him and says, " What do you want to know for? " 

Says he : " Come young fellow, dont give me no 
langwidge ; I want to know if you are married or 
single ? " There was others behind me waiting to be 
talked to, or talk to the young fellow, so I cut it 
short and says to him : " Well, young feller, if you 
want to know very bad, I'm single." ''AH right," 
says he ; " You go forward to the quarters for the 
single men." 

" What's that ? " says I. 

'' Forward of the main hatch," says he. 

I didn't know the difference between a main hatch 
and a chicken hatch, but not to keep the crowd wait- 
ing, I followed some of the others to the narrowing 
part of the ship. ''Where's the main hatch, boys ? " 
says I to a lot of sailors who was working like sixty 
slinging a lot of trunks down a hole. One of them 
winks his eye to the others and says. " It's in the 
fok'sel ; do you want it ? " 



24 

"No," says I, "I'm looking for the quarters for 
single men." 

"Why didn't you say so in the first place?" says 
the jacky. " What are you axin for the main hatch 
for? You follows your nose till you gits to the 
bows and then you sees a companionway, down 
which you goes, and then you'll see the place you're 
looking for." 

" All right," says I, " thank you, mate." 

The deck was all heaped up with boxes, bags, 
trunks, steamer-chairs, ropes, chains and other things, 
and it was a pretty tough job to gifalongover them, 
but I finally managed to find the place I was looking 
for. It was a stairway that led down into the steer- 
age. It was the darndest, orneryiest looking stair- 
way that I ever seed, for it was straight up and 
down and housed in above the deck by well-fitted, 
water-tight boards, over which there was a sliding- 
hood or cover. Along the stairway ran a rail which 
one could catch hold of going down so as not to fall 
and break his neck, and on each step there was a 
rough brass plate to prevent one from slipping. 



25 



CHAPTER III, 

STEERAGE TO GLASGOW. 

As soon as I tried to go down that stairway, there 
was trouble, trouble of the worst kind. I didn't get 
down more then half a dozen steps or so when I 
smelled something queer. I looked around to see 
what it could be, for I never smelled nothing like 
that before, but I couldn't see nothing out of the 
way. It was a mighty queer smell, kind of low and 
soft like, but it was penetrating, mighty penetrating. 
The fust thing I knowed it ketched me in the throat 
and I began to chaw and spit like I was chawing 
tobacco, and pooty soon I began to git shakey in 
the pins and I got so weak you could have knocked 
me down with a feather. Gosh a'mighty, thinks I, 
what does this mean ? I didn't eat ner drink nothing 
strange this morning, and I dont know what's gittin 
inter me. The smell kept gitten stronger and 
stronger, and I kept gittin weaker and weaker, 
Tears riz in my eyes, a lump riz in my throat, and 
the more I tried to swaller the harder the lump got. 
The fust thing I knowed it came up and I was sick, 
mighty sick. '' Oh Lordy ! Lordy ! " thinks I, what 
did I want to come on board a ship for? I might 
have knowed it wouldn't agree with me. Why didn't 
I stay on dry land where I was brought up ; oh, what 
a fool I was to come here. If I am sick now what 
will I be when I gits in the ocean. By gosh ! guess 
I'll turn tail and scoot before it's too late. On 
second thought I kind of thought I wouldn't do that 
for my friends would have had thelaugh on me,. So 



26 

I made up my mind I'd stay if I died for it, and I 
kind of felt as if I would die. 

Bye-and-bye I gits a little better, so down I crawls 
to the bottom of the stairs and sits on the last 
step where I puts my head in my hands and grunts 
like a bear with the belly-ache. While I was sitting 
there, down comes a jacky, airy-fairy fashion, like 
he was dancing on eggs, with a big black pan in his 
hands, in which was biled meat, taters and gravy, 
all of which was smoking hot. When he sees me 
and sees what I done, he gits hopping mad and 
wants to know what I means by mussing up the 
the ship like that, and why I dont go up stairs. I 
ketched a good whiff of the vittels just then and I 
answered the cuss by firing away worse than ever. 
He dont say no more but scoots like the devil was 
after him. Oh, pardner! I was feeling bad; mighty 
bad. The heart was took clean out of me. I never 
felt that way before. When I gets a little better I 
makes a sneak for another stairway, for I has to go 
down another stairway before 1 kin git into the cel- 
lar or steerage, as they calls it. It took me some 
time to git there, and when I did git there, I stands 
there a winking and blinking like a caged owl, for I 
couldn't see nothing it was so dark, and pooty soon 
a steward gits onto me and comes forward to give 
me the glad hand and to tell me to make my- 
self to home. When he gits close up to me. he 
stops and looks at me silent-like, for I guess he sees 
there's something wrong with me, but he dont say 
nothing ; he only says to me, *' come with me 
young feller, and I'll gee ye a bairth " He kinder 
spoke something like that. He was a middle-aged 



2J 

man and was kinder well built, and he had side- 
boards and a soft way about him. I follows him and 
he shows me to a bunk which was in a room near 
the stairway. I didn't like the looks ner the smell 
of the steerage, so I didn't stay there no longer than 
I could help, but I makes tracks for the deck again 
where I could see daylight and git some fresh air. 
When I gits on deck again, I sits down on the rail- 
ing of the ship and looks around me. I was feeling 
pretty bad at the stomach but the fresh air soon 
fetched me around again all right. 

There was a tremenjus racket going on all around 
me on the ship and on the wharf, for there was sail- 
ors working on deck, pulling and hauling and sing- 
ing hee-hee, ho-ho, and there was passengers coming 
on board with their hand-bags and other truck, and 
trunks was being lowered into the hole which never 
seemed to git full. On the wharf carriages and 
wagons kept coming and going, fakirs was dancing 
around and trying to sell things, and there was a 
good deal of noise and to-do. From the looks of 
things you'd think a circus had come to town or a 
lion had broke loose, and I had a mind to go on the 
wharf to get a better view of things, but I thinks to 
myself, thinks I, perhaps they wont let me on board 
again, so I better stay where I am. When nine 
o'clock comes around we gits ready to start. A 
nice-looking officer climbs on a little deck in the 
front part of the ship, and he tells a lot of mugs on 
shore to unhook a big rope that holds the ship to 
the wharf, and the mugs do it, but they git careless- 
like and throw the rope overboard and it falls into 
the water, but a lot of jackies on board ketches it 



28 

and hauls it oil board singing ho-ho, hee-hee, in great 

fashion Them buggers can't sing a little bit. The 

next thing on the bill of fare is, the gang-planks is 

hauled in and then we's loose from the shore. The 

only way we kin git ashore now is by jumpin, 

but I wouldn't want to jump. The skipper of the 

ship now stands over the deck on a high platform, 

and he hollers down to the engineer in the coal hole, 

*' I say Pete, let her go!" or something like that, 

and Pete lets her go, and the fust thing we know 

the wharf commences to move away from us. I 

wonder where it's a going to, but by gosh, its us 

that's moving and not the wharf. " We're off for 

Yurrup," cries I to myself. " Hurray ! Hurray ! 

Hurray! Tiger!" I guess I kin travel to Yurrup 

as well as the next man. Some of the passengers 

didn't seem to be feeling good just then for I could 

see them sniveling and blubbering, and I guess 

they was sorry to leave their home and friends. 

They waved their handkerchiefs and cried good-bye ! 

good-bye ! and they tried to smile but I could tell 

they was feeling bad. While this was going on, all 

of a suddent there comes a ripping, roaring, tearing 

crash, and I thought the biler bust, and was for 

making a flying leap overboard, but it was only the 

ship tooting her horn. What a hair-raising noise it 

made. Gee-whiz ! it sent the shivers down my back 

and almost scared the life out of a lot of pigeons 

that scooted away as if old Nick was after them. 

We was off for Yurrup now ; off for fair. Hooray ! 
Hooray! Hooray! Tiger! Over the river! ta-ta ! 
The ship pointed her nose down stream and it 
wasn't long before she was scooting along at a tre- 



29 

menjus rate. She was a mighty fine ship and she 
could go like a streak if she wanted to, I could easily 
see that, and it made me laugh to see all the little 
tugs and the other ships scramble to git out of her 
way, for they knowed if they didn't they'd git 
runned over sure. " Better git out of the way there 
little dogs, for if you dont there wont be nothing 
left of you ! Scoot ! " The scenery around there 
was too tine, truly beautiful, I may say. On one 
side was Hoboken and Weehawken, and on the 
other side was New York with its piles of piers 
which was strung along the river front, and a lot of 
tall buildings stood up behind 'em. We passed 
Castle Garden where the greenhorns used to land> 
and then we came to the statute of Liberty which 
stands large as life on an island in the river. The 
statute is a tremenjus piece of work — tremenjus — 
and it's so tall it almost breaks a feller's neck to look 
up at it. The Frenchman what made it done a 
mighty slick job, for there aint nothing like it in 
this country. Miss Liberty stands on a pedustel, 
and the pedustel itself is as tall as the mast of any 
ship, and taller. Miss Liberty herself is taller ner 
the pedustel even, and even one of her hands is so 
big that twenty men could sit in it. I aint stretchin 
it. In the crown on her coconut away up is a lot of 
little windows through which a whole crowd of 
people kin look out, and she's that holler inside 
people kin go in her and git clean up to the little 
windows. I've been in the statute and I went way 
on top, but I wouldn't do it again. It's too much 
like work. There's too many stairs to climb — about 
i,ioo of 'em We sneaked past Brooklyn, South 



30 

Brooklyn, Governor's Island, Bay Ridge, Fort Hamil- 
ton, Fort Richmond, Fort Lafayette, Staten Island, 
South Beach, Bath Beach, and then we came to 
Coney Island, the dizziest place in North America. 
I can't give Coney Island the go-by without saying a 
word for it. It's a hot place, Coney is, and I've 
been there more than onct. Me and my Sunday gal 
onct took in the ephelant, the merry-go-round, the 
streets of Kighro, the shoot-the-chute business, the 
swings, the hammer that hits the weight that goes up> 
the fortune teller, the coon that lets you hit his nut 
with a baseball for a nickel, the frankfort-sassage 
man, the dance halls, the free-and-easy's, the fakirs — 
say, Coney Island is a hot place I'm a telling you. 
I couldn't drag my chip away from it. She was 
dead stuck on it and wanted to live there. But now 
I was leaving it, and may be forever. Good-bye, 
old Coney; if I dont see you again. Hello ! 

After we past Coney Island we came to Sandy 
Hook which is a piece of land shaped like a hook, 
only it's sandy, and that was the last land we came to. 
We couldn't see nothing else now except sky and 
water. To tell you the truth I ain't dead stuck on 
that kind of scenery, for I likes to see something 
more solid. I ain't a romantic cuss and I likes to see 
the sea but only when I'm a little ways off from it 
about a mile ; and I dont like to git too close. I was a 
little too close just now to suit me. Some of the 
funny papers says that hobos gits skittish when 
they sees water, but that ain't so ; leastwise it ain't 
with me. I likes water but not too much of it. 
Look at this lay-out, will yer? Nothing but water. 
Well, I hope I won't git drownded in it. Suppose 



31 

our boat gits afire or goes down what will become 
of me ? Go down and feed the eels and crabs ? Oh, 
Lordy, Lordy ; I hope nothing like that will hap- 
pen. I would rather git hanged ner drownded any 
day, for I want to be buried on dry land. I looked 
at some row boats on the ship and supposed that in 
case anything happened to the ship we would have 
to go in them. What, git into one of them little 
things in the ocean ! Not on yer life. I'll stick to 
the ship, boys, no matter what happens. I hope 
nothing will happen but things is mighty oncertain 
on the ocean, for one kin read in the papers every 
day about ships going down. 

I turned away and took a look at the ship to see 
what sJie was like. The fust thing I seen was two 
big thick masts, that stuck away up on high and to 
which there was tied sails and rope ladders and up 
which jackies could climb. Away up high was a lot 
of ropes strung from one mast to the other so as to 
hold 'em together and keep 'em from falling over- 
board. Then there was on deck besides the masts 
a meat-house where they kept meat, and two cute 
little light-houses where they kept lights burning all 
night so as no other ship would bunk into us. In 
the middle of the ship was a lot of cabins which was 
roofed over, and in 'em lived the ship's of^cers, the 
engineers, purser, chief steward and barber, for over 
every door there was a sign which said who lived 
there. This was on one side of the ship. On the 
other side there was a kitchen, bakery, pantry, 
vegetable room, where they peeled the vegetables, 
and a boiler room. All these cabins was roofed 
over, and they was as snug as a bug in a rug. The 



officers was all right, but how about the crew? 
They lived down a hole in the front part of the ship 
right under what they calls the bows, and poor jackie 
had to sleep in a bunk like a Chinaman, one over the 
other. Jack thinks his boodoir is a fine one, but 
I'd rather bunk in a haystack on the prairies any 
day. The haystacks dont rock, anyway. We pas- 
sengers wasn't housed any better then Jack. We 
slept in bunks Chinaman-fashion too, and I can't say 
as I liked it. When I sleep I likes to be alone, so 
as I kin kick and snore if I wants to. The bunks 
was nothing but bare boards put together cofifin- 
fashion, and in 'em was a straw mattress that had 
lumps in it, a straw pillow and an army blanket. 
There might have been other things but I didn't 
feel none, ner ketch none of 'em, and maybe there 
wasn't none. Leastways I didn't look for none. 
One chap that slept in the same room as I did was 
a Polander, and he was dead stuck on garlic and 
onions, and he kept eating 'em all day long except 
at meal times, so it's no wonder the steerage smelt 
bad. 

The deck was all right, but I'd rather be able 
to chase myself around the block on shore than be 
on it. There was a sort of alley-way or sidewalk on 
each side of the deck where a feller could shassay 
back and forth, and a high railing so that no one 
could tumble overboard. Over the deck was them 
rowboats I was telling you about, and I got shaky 
every time I looked at 'em. A good strong wind 
was blowing out here though, and I was gittin 
hungry. I didn't eat nothing since yesterday, for 
what I eat that morning didn't stay with me, and I 



33 

wondered how long it would be before it would be 
meal time. It was about noon now. Pooty soon I 
got so hungry I could have tackled a horse, and 
visions of table-de-hot dinners began to float around 
me. I thought of running the gantlet of them stairs 
again, but I could have gone through fire and water 
just then for a meal's vittels. When the dinner-bell 
rung yer oughter have seen me scoot down them 
stairs. I didn't take time to walk down, I just 
dropped down. All the others made a grand rush 
at the same time, and we all landed with both feet. 
When I landed in the steerage, I looked around for 
the table-de-hot, but nary table-de-hot did I see. 
There was two little bare tables there which wasn't 
set, and a bench on either side of them, and that 
was all. " What does this mean," says I to myself, 
"ain't we going to git no dinner?" Nary sign of 
grub, plate ner anything was there. There wasn't 
no tables to sit down to either, only jusc them two 
and there wasn't any room except for about a 
dozen people or so. " Hello ! " thinks I ; '' where 
are we going to eat ? " I seen some of the other 
fellers go in their rooms and come out with dishes, 
so I thinks maybe there may be some in my room 
too. In I goes, and sure enough in my bunk I sees 
layin' there a knife, fork, spoon, cup and wash-basin- 
I brings 'em all out, and gits ready for what's comin'" 
"What's the basin for?" says I. "Soup!" says 
one of the boarders to me. " Soup in a wash, 
basin, hey!" says I. "Why don"'t they give us a 
water-pitcher to drink it out of?" The knife, fork 
and spoon was as fine a collection of bricky-brack as 
I ever laid eyes on. They was a good many 



years old and had seen better days, but they was 
still willing to do duty even if they wasn't very able. 
They was made of pewter and looked as if they had 
been through a war. The cup was made of delf 
and was a scabby article, but it was all there. The 
basin was made of delf too, and you couldn't have 
broke it if you had hit it with a sledge-hammer. I 
wonder how much this job lot of eating things cost? 
I wouldn't have given a nickel for the lot. We 
stood around quite awhile with our bricky-brack? 
seeing what was going to happen, and we was gittin 
allfired hungry. Bye-and-bye two stewards meanders 
down stairs carrying in each hand a bucket, which 
looked like a swill-bucket, but in one of the buckets 
was soup and in the other praties. One of the 
stewards had a string slung around his neck to 
which was tied a long, black pan in which was biled 
beef. The feller with the soup came to us first and 
filled our basins with soup. It was pea soup they 
dished out to us and it was pooty good, only there 
wasn't no peas in it. I couldn't ketch a single pea, 
although I tried. I fished and fished but nary pea. 
" How^s this," thinks I, '' pea soup and no peas in 
it? " When I eats all the soup and gits to the bot- 
tom, maybe I'll find the peas. When I gits to the 
bottom, I sees something there that looks and feels 
like yaller mud, and it tastes like peas " Pea- 
paste ! " as I live ! thinks I. " By gosh ! I never 
knowed that peas was so dear before." Why, in this 
country they feed hogs on peas in some places. 
After we gets through with the soup, the other 
duck comes around and fires a handful of praties 
and some slabs of meat at us. The praties was 



35 

biled with their jackets on, and was mealy, and the 
meat was good. Every man got all he could eat 
and if he wanted any more all he had to do was to 
holler for it. There was over a hundred of us 
chaps in the steerage, but there was only room at 
the table for about a dozen of us, so the rest of us 
had to stand up and eat or eat squatting like a 
turk on the floor. If the floor had only been clean 
it wouldn't have been so bad, but it was greasy. 

The first meal was a good one, but bye-and bye 
the grub kept gitting worser and worser, and finally 
it got so bad we couldn't eat it at all. The meat 
got too rich for us, so we chucked it overboard, and 
the praties got to growing so small, that if they 
kept on growing that way we wouldn't be able to 
see 'em at all. The eatin' was tough. So as you 
will better understand all about the grub, I'll tell 
you what we got to eat at the different meals. For 
brtiakfast we got coffee, bread and butter, and once 
or twice some swill they called porridge. Tough 
eatin' the porridge was, and I'd hate to pizen my 
dog with it. The coffee was handed around already 
sweetened and milked, and I don't think sugar 
sweetened it ner milk colored it. As for the coffee 
itself, it didn't taste like coffee but like warm water. 
I don't like to slander no one, leastwise the cook, 
but if that bugger had cooked for the cowboys, he 
wouldn't have come out alive. They would have 
skinned him. The bread sometimes was good 
and sometimes it was bad. And as for the butter, 
say pardner, excuse me ; I pass. It was bull butter 
of the worst kind, and you could smell it a yard off. 
For dinner we had soup, meat and praties, except 



3^ 

Friday's, when we had fish. The fish they called 
ling, and it was a cheap sort of salt-cod, and I eat 
some of it once, but never again. It was so salty it 
made me drink like a fish, and I didn't git over my 
thirst for three days. If I only had a keg of beer 
with me it wouldn't have been so bad, but beer was 
twelve cents a bottle on board, which was too high- 
toned for me. On Sundays we had some sort of 
dough for desert what they called plum duff, but 
there wasn't no plums in it, and it tasted like saw- 
dust. This concoction was made of stale cake or 
bread, I guess, and it had a big raisin in it here and 
there, but it was mighty dry eatin'. It tasted some- 
thing like Washington pie, only Washington pie is 
richer. For supper, or tea as they called it on board, 
we got tea, bread and butter. The tea tasted better 
than the coffee, but it was mighty weak stuff and it 
was colored and sweetened like the coffee. Some- 
times we also had what they called marmalade, 
which was something like apple-butter, but it was 
bitter stuff and puckered a fellers mouth like persim- 
mons. I guess it was made out of penny oranges, 
which was bitter as gall. 



37 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE STORM — SEASICK. 
There was quite a gang on the ship, and most of 
them was Irish, but not a few of them was Scotch, 
and there was several who was Roosian and Ger- 
man, and one or two was Fins or Laplanders I 
guess, though I wouldn't take an affidavy on that, 
but they looked like it and talked like it. As the 
ship was going to stop in Ireland and Scotland, 
that's why there was so many Irish and Scotch 
aboard, but what the Laplanders and other foreign- 
ers was doing there I don't know. Maybe they had 
to git to them countries to git home. There was a 
big crowd of men, women and children aboard, and 
they all seemed to be as happy as a pup what's 
chasin his own tail. They didn't seem to have no 
cares, but I'll bet it took many of 'em along time to 
save up the money they was spendin'. There was 
some pretty decent folks there, but some of 'em 
looked like pretty mean cusses, for they never spoke 
to no one, never laughed, and kept to themselves. 
Some of the Irish had a slick Irish brogue about 
them, and the way some of 'em spoke would make 
you feel good all over, for it rolled off so rich and 
easy-like. I guess they must have been Corkonians, 
for I've hearn 'em say that Corkonians speaks the 
purest Irish. I guess all the Irish was going home 
to the old Dart to see if it was all there. Some was 
going home to stay maybe, and some only to visit, 
for many of 'em I guess was Irish-American citizens. 
The Irish is all right. Some of 'em comes over to 



38 

this country and gits to be politicioners, some gits 
to be policemen, some gits to be head-porters in big 
hotels, and some gits in jail. If it wasn't for booze 
the most of 'em would be all right. They are thick 
in this country and gits along well. You don't 
ketch no Irishmen going around picking up cigar- 
buts on the streets, fishing out rags from ash-barrels, 
paradin with a monkey and hand-organ, and chasing 
around the markets picking up rotten fruit and 
vegetables, but they works, they does. The rest of 
'em ought to come over here from Ireland and grow 
up with the country, for theres room for 'em all and 
more too. They won't have to live on buttermilk 
and praties like in the old country, and on pea-soup 
without no peas in it, but as soon as they gits here 
they'll git good chuck. I know some chaps what 
just landed here from the old country that lived on 
praties and buttermilk in the old country, and when 
they got a job in a big hotel here and got roast 
goose and chicken onct a day, they kicked and 
wanted to know if the boss took 'em for hogs. 
One chap got some pratie-salad for dinner one day, 
and made a kick because the praties was cold The 
Irish is all right. There was a lot of pretty Irish 
gals on board, but they wasn't allowed to live with 
us bucks in the steerage, which was a bad thing for 
us and a healthy thing for them maybe, but we 
could talk to them when we ketched 'em on deck, 
and they wasn't proud and let us talk to 'em. But 
some of 'em seemed to care more for the cook than 
they did for us, because the cook gave 'em good 
things to eat. Oh, some Irish gals is fly, I'm telling 
you. There was one Irish chip on board and she 



39 

was a corker. She was always dressed very genteel 
in black and she was handsome, plump and tall 
and white-like, and you'd think she was the Dukess 
of Tipperary or something like that, for she held her 
head away up and wouldn't travel with no scruff or 
bums like me, but only with well-dressed folks. 
She was pooty and she knowed it. Some of 
the dudes on board almost broke their necks trying 
to shassay back and forth with her, and she let 'em 
too. She looked at me onct with a kind of far 
away gaze, but I wasn't thinking of trying to shas- 
say with her. I wasn't dude enough for her, I 
guess. I never seen so many Scotch folks before as 
I seen on board. There ain't near so many Scotch 
folks in America as there is Irish, and you dont see 
many of 'em together at one time, except at the 
Caledonia games or some Scotch picnic, or some- 
thing like that They is quiet folks and don't say 
much, but they take their'n out in thinkin'. They 
is sociable, and will take a drink with you if you ask 
them, but they ain't a rarin, tearin, cussing set. 
They is quiet, but if you git 'em mad they'll fight 
like a coyote what the dogs is onter to. You don't 
want to monkey with 'em. Their langwidge gits 
me though What do they mean when they 
calls you bony? Do they mean you is skinny? 
Many of the Scotch folks I seed is skinny, but do 
they think every one is skinny? I've hearn 'em say 
other words too, likesoonsie, braw, agley, ajee, blin, 
kanny and sich, and it made me laugh. They talk 
the Gayllck, I'm told. Some of 'em on the ship 
talked the Gaylick, and I wondered if the Gaylick is 
the same as Hebrew ? Pears like it. Those I heard 



40 

speak the Gaylick spoke like as if they had a bean or 
something- in their throat. Thats the way some 
sheenies speak. There was one Scotch chippie on 
board, and she took my time. She was a beaut and 
no mistake. She had a figger that was supple as a 
willow, and she had a face like the full moon. 
She was mighty quiet and shy-like, and didn't say 
much but sat around and read a book and looked 
out on the sea. Oh if I only had the nerve to brace 
her, I would have liked to talk to her. I was kind 
of stuck on her. She didn't seem to take no stock 
in no one though, and perhaps she wouldn't take 
none in me, even if I was a foreigner and an 
American, and native born to boot. While laying 
around there, I heard her speak to a lady onct and 
she spoke slow and kind of sad-like. Her voice was 
so mournful it made me feel kind of lemoncholy. 
It made me think of the Sierras in Californy where 
the woods is awful sad and lonely, and where the 
wind when it hums through the pines make mighty 
sad music. Say, did you ever pick up a shell at the 
seashore and put it to your ear and hear how it 
moaned and moaned ? Didn't it make you feel sad 
like as if you was wondering what you was living 
for anyway? Well, that's the way I felt when I 
heard that Scotch gal's voice. Why was she so sad 
and mournful-like? Did her feller go back on her 
or did her uncle die and forgit to leave her anything 
in his will? I had a mind to ask her, but she might 
have told me to mind my own business. It was on 
a Saturday when we left New York, and the weather 
wasn't very fine, for the skies was cloudy and I 
thought every minute it would rain. When we gits 



41 

out in the ocean a piece, it did rain, and the rain 
didn't take time to fall down, it just throwed itself 
down in solid sheets. The ocean looked black and 
mean, and I didn't like to look at it. I just loafed 
around deck hunting for a dry spot, and I would 
have gone down in the steerage only it smelled so. 
The other passengers went down and stayed there, 
but what they was doing down there I dont know. 
I guess they went to bed and laid off. I didn't 
know what to do to fill in the time. I just loafed 
and smoked and loafed. A feller couldn't go to no 
saloon there, or chase himself around the block or 
do anything, so the time passed slow, mighty slow. 
I just waited for supper time to come around, and 
after I eat that, I went on deck again and waited 
for bed-time to come. I bummed around till about 
ten o'clock and then went to bed. I had to sleep 
with my clothes on for there was no place to put 
'em, except in the bunk, and I didn't like to do that 
because I thought maybe there was some Scots 
Grays in it, like I heard one Scotch chap call bugs. 
The next day, Sunday, was fine, truly beautiful, I 
may say. The storm passed away during the night, 
big, thick, white clouds that looked like wads of 
cotton-batting hung in the sky, and the sky was as 
blue as the blue eyes of a gal I once seen — an awful 
light blue. Every man, woman and kid on the ship 
was on deck that day, and they shassayed back and 
forth till they got tired. We had plum-duff for 
dinner to-day, and I wasn't stuck on it. Sailors is 
dead stuck on it, but them buggers don't know what 
good grub is. Praties and meat is good enough for 
them. 



42 

On Monday the clouds gathered again, and though 
it didn't rain, the weather made a feller feel gloomy. 
It was blue Monday anyway. We seen a little pilot 
boat this morning early, dipping and bowing away 
out here in the ocean, and it made me seasick to 
look at her, she rolled and pitched so. The waves 
wasn't very high and our boat didn't rock at all, but 
this one did, awful. What was she doing away out 
here? Looking for a job? Well, she didn't git 
none from us anyway, for we gave her the go-by in 
mighty short order. Pilot-boats goes by steam now, 
I heard one of the passengers say, but this one 
didn't. She better go home, or where she kin see 
land, for if a storm comes up there wont be nothing 
left of her. Why, she wasn't no bigger hardly than 
a yot. Go home there, go home, I'm a tellin' you, 
little boat, or you'll git in trouble. How I put in 
that long day, blest if I kin say. I just loafed, that's 
all. I was gittin' mighty tired of loafing, and the 
days was gitting as long as six months. 

When Tuesday come around, I heard some of the 
passengers say we was gitting close to the banks, and 
I was glad of that, for I wanted to see a little land. 
A chap told me the banks wasn't land but water, and 
I took him to be one of them smart alecks what 
likes to make game of people, but I found out after- 
wards he wasn't kiddin'. I was keepin' my eyes 
peeled for the banks, but I couldn't see none. It 
got to be mighty foggy all of a suddin, and the fog 
was so thick we couldn't even see the water, so 
pooty soon the ship begins to slow down, and toot 
her horn like a good feller. We came mighty near 
running over something, for almost alongside of us 



43 

we could hear the bell of a ship ringing, and we just 
ketched the sight of a sail as she went by. Close 
call, by jiminy ! If she struck us or we struck her, 
where would I be now ? You dont ketch me in no 
ships again in a hurry. It's too risky ! 

On Wednesday it was still foggy, and I was git- 
ting mighty tired of sea-voyaging I couldn't do 
nothing but loaf and eat and sleep. On deck I 
couldn't see nothing, the fog was that thick. Along 
in the afternoon a wind sprung up and chased the 
fog away, and that was a good thing, for now we 
could see something anyway, and the skipper could 
figure out where he was at. 

Holy smoke! look at that, will you? A lot of 
fishes about as big as a big shad was going by the 
side of the ship like a streak, and their sides was all 
colors — green, blue, yaller, etc. Holy smoke ! what 
a crowd of 'em, too. And can't they scoot though, 
my ! my ! They seemed to be in a mighty big hurry 
to git somewhere, like they had a business appint- 
ment, and some of 'em jumped out of the water and 
tumbled over the others to git there first. Right 
after 'em came a great big fish, bigger ner a halibut, 
and some of the passengers said he was after the 
little buggers, and wanted to eat 'em. The sun-of- 
a-gun ! So that was his game, was it ? I hoped he 
wont git 'em. The little fishes wants to live as well 
as the big ones. Oh, if I only knowed what he was 
after, wouldn't I have liked to plunk him. The son- 
of-a-gun. After this circus was over, we seen a lot 
of whales spoutin near the ship. They just flipped 
over and shook their tails at us, as if to say, " kiss 
me foot ! " They was big buggers and knowed 



44 

enough to keep away from us. They just kept 
spoutin and spoutin at a safe distance. There's 
mighty queer things in the sea, ain't there ? When 
you look at the sea sometimes you wouldn't believe 
there's anything in it, it's so cam-like and smiling. 
It's deceivin though, I'm telling you ; mighty de- 
ceivin and you can't depend on it. It dont take 
much to git its back up, and when it does git it up, 
look out. About two o'clock that day the wind be- 
gins to git stronger, and it soon blowed hard. Big 
black clouds began to gather in the east, and they 
comes nearer and nearer and gits blacker and blacker. 
Oh, Lordy ! there's a storm coming up, and a bad 
one, too. Think's I at first, I better go down and 
git out of the way, but then if the ship goes down 
I'll git drownded down there first. Guess I better 
stay and see what's going to happen. I goes to the 
mast and sits down there, and when I looked around 
I says to myself, says I, " I guess I'm a goner. No 
ship kin come out alive through that storm." The 
clouds was now right over us, the waves was high 
as mountains, and their tops was hissin and spittin 
like a cat what's cornered by a dog. '' Oh, Lordy ! 
Lordy ! this is awful. Oh, why did I come i' This 
js the end of it, I'll never see dry land again. 
Good-bye all ! good-bye ! " Oh, you ought to have 
heard how the wind was a carrying on ! It was yel- 
ling like a parcel of Piutes what's scalped a feller 
and is dancing around him crazy as bed bugs. The 
mast inside was a gruntin and a groanin like it was 
sick, and the rope-ladders where the sailors goes up 
was swinging tremenjus, and away up there was a 
roarin like thunder. The ship now, which was pretty 



45 

steady before, began to keel over first to one side 
and then to the other, and then she jumped up and 
down like a crazy man. I was too scared to move, 
and I was gitting seasick. Oh, mercy ! mercy! See 
them waves, will you ! See 'em jumpin' and dancin* 
and spitting ! Its awful ; awful ! This ship is like 
a fly in a basin, and ain't got no show at all. See 
her make a jump up like she was trying to ketch 
something, and when she misses it, ker-swash down 
she goes back into the water like a tub, and shivers 
and groans. Then she almost touches the water 
with one railing, and when she misses it, she keels 
over to the other side ter see if she kin make it over 
there. Oh, my poor stomach ; I'm awful sick. I 
fires away but I dont dare to move. The decks is 
all wet and slippery, and the spit leaps over on 
board in sheets ; and I guess the first thing I know 
the ship will turn turtle. Well, good-bye. Guess 
I'll go down stairs and go to bed, come to think of 
it. I goes down stairs and goes to bed, and covers 
up, feeling mighty bad. It was awful down there. 
There was no air, and it smelled like a slaughter- 
house. The ship was creakin' and groanin', satchels 
and other things was slidin' around, and after I got 
in my bunk it was all I could do to lay there, for I 
was nearly spilled out more than once. I had a 
splitting headache and I wasn't caring much whether 
school kept or not. Ships is awful things ! awful ! 
If any man ever ketches me in a ship again, he kin 
call me anything he likes. I just laid there all that 
day and night, and cursed myself for going to 
Yurrup. 

Thursday the storm was worse than ever, and I 



46 

was afraid to go up stairs. I didn't git up for meals 
even, for I was clean off my feed. My room-mate 
was chawin'garlick and onions same as ever, though, 
and nothing phased him. He didn't miss a meal no 
more than did some of the others. Oh, I wish I 
could be like them. 

Friday the storm was still a blowing, and I was so 
weak I asked my room-mate to bring me a hunk of 
bread, for I didn't have the nerve to git up and git 
it myself. He done so. 

Saturday it was the same like the other days, and 
I was gittin as thin as a shadder, and I begun to 
feel that if this thing lasted much longer there 
wouldn't be much left of me. I never was so done 
up before. I just lay there pale and dead like. 

Sunday it was just the same, only not quite so 
bad, and I lay there and wondered if I could stand so 
much without dyin'. I guess I've got a good con- 
steetootion. Even the smell of grub made me sick. 
The steward came in and made me git up, and when 
I got on deck he brought me some soup, and give 
me some big crackers to chaw on. Only for that I 
wouldn't be here, I guess. I was almost done for. 
" Aha ! " says I to myself ; " you will go to sea, will 
you ? This will learn you a lesson, you idiot ! " I 
was mighty quiet and humble like, and didn't have 
no bad word for nobody. 

Monday being the next day, and the ninth day 
out, we was told that we would see land some time 
during the afternoon. That helped to keep me 
alive, and as I stood so much, I guess I kin hold out 
a day longer. Oh, pardner, was you ever in love 
and did you ever make an appointment to meet your 



47 

gal on the corner the next day, and do you remem- 
ber how slow the time passed till you could see her? 
That's the way I felt while waiting to see the land 
once more. I was like a cockroach on a hot stove. 
I was clean off and didn't know where to go or what 
to do. I counted the hours, and every hour was like 
six months. I was sleeping in my clothes for over 
a week, I wasn't half- washed, I was sick, sore, down- 
in-the-mouth and feeling bad all over. 

The next day, Monday, come ; and I was that 
anxious I riz at daybreak and crawled on deck, for I 
wanted to keep my business eye open for the land, 
and I wanted to see it the first thing. Maybe we'll 
see it sooner than we expects, thinks I. The clouds 
was breaking away now, and the weather was gittin 
a little clearer. So I lays low on deck and says 
nothin. No land in sight. When dinner time 
comes around, I goes down and eats a little just to 
keep the circulation going, but I eats mighty slow 
so as to make the time pass quick. After dinner I 
goes on deck again and keeps my eyes shifting 
around for land. All the other passengers was on 
deck, too, and about two o'clock we all sees a fog 
along ways ahead of us, and one of the jackies who 
was on deck told us that was land I thought he 
was foolin and felt like cussing him for trying to 
make game of a poor feller, but bye-and-bye I sees 
something like pretty tall mountains rising above 
the fog. It is land ! It is land ! So help me good- 
ness, it is land ! Thanks be to God ! I felt like git- 
ting up and shoutin' hurray ! hurray ! hurray ! 
but I was too weak, so I just laid there and felt 
good all over. I kin tell you I felt good. Colum- 



bus must have felt good when he first seen the 
land, but I'll bet a nickel he never felt as good as I 
did when I seen the land. It was almost too good 
to believe that it was land I saw. When we came 
nearer to it we could see plainer that it was land, 
and then I was satisfied, and felt so happy that I 
could almost have blubbered. It was like putting 
new life inter me, like being elevated by a 
drop of good whiskey. I felt away up, I'm a 
telling you. And the land we saw, they told us, 
was Ireland. Kin you believe it ? The old Dart 
herself. My ! my ! where am I ? Am I dreaming ? 
Is this me or somebody else ? No, it canH be me. 
It was too good to be believed. I'm mighty 
glad I'm alive ter see it. So that's Ireland, hey ! 
well, well, well ! May I be blowed ! I couldn't see 
nothing but mountains on the land, and I wondered 
where was the cities and the people, but I couldn't 
see nothing like that. As the mountains was right 
ahead of us, and we couldn't sail through 'em, I 
guess they turned the ship up north, and we kept 
sailin' and sailin' for hours along the mountains, but 
the longer we sailed the more mountains did we see. 
They was pretty tall to look at and not a thing 
growed on 'em, but they was great big tall rocks. 
Sometimes they curved-like inter the land, and 
I thought maybe we'd sail inter some creek, but we 
didn't ; we kept straight on. About five o'clock we 
got in pretty close to the shore, and then we sailed 
in between an island, what they called Tory Island, 
and the main land, and we sailed so close to the 
island we could see it plain. There was a light- 
house at one end of it, and then a lot of prarie land 



49 

with little patches of farms on it, and at t'other end 
was a pile of tall rocks or mountains, the funniest I 
ever seen. They was all cut up by the waves, and 
was all kinds of shapes. I couldn't take my eyes off 
'em, they was so queer. Wish I had a picture so as 
to show you how they looked. A little while later 
we found we was out of the ocean and in a bay, and 
pretty soon we anchored off a place they called 
Moville, where the Irish passengers was going to 
git off. A little tug came up and took 'em off, and 
they wasn't sorry to go, I kin tell you. Wish I 
was going too. After they and their baggage gits 
off, we hists the anchor on board again, and off we 
scoots fer Scotland. I hearn 'em say we would git 
ter Scotland the next morning bright and early. I 
didn't sleep much that night, I kin tell you, for it 
was like laying on needles and pins, I was that 
anxious. Lo and behold you, by the time I was 
awake next morning, we was right up close to the 
land in Scotland, and when I knowed that I jumped 
out of bed and rushed up stairs to see what the 
land looked like. We was laying off a place they 
called Greenock, which is in Scotland, near Glasgow, 
and it's quite a place. One of the Scotch chaps 
aboard told me it's celebrated for ship-building and 
for sugar refineries, and also because a gal died 
there what was called Highway Mary what a pote 
named Mr Robert Burns was stuck on. He said it 
was more famous for that than any other thing. 
He was kiddin, I guess. What, famous, because a 
chip died there ! Not on yer life ! Yer can't coon 
me like that. 



50 



CHAPTER V. 

THE DEBUT IN SCOTLAND. 

The place we was now in was a kind of bay, which 
was about three miles wide, but how long it was I 
don't know, for I couldn't see the end of it, as it 
stretched away along the land further than I could 
see ; but it was a good long one, you can bet on 
that. The head of our ship was anchored off Green- 
ock, and her tail was pointed to a lot of hills on the 
opposite shore, which a Scotch chap on board told 
me was the Highlands of Scotland. So, them is the 
Highlands of Scotland, hey ? My! my! ain't they 
grand ! They was pooty tall and round-like, and 
they was mighty bald on top and lonely, and they 
stretched away as far as the eye could sec. Nothing 
growed on them that I could see, for there was 
nary sign of a bush, tree ner anything ; but they 
made the place look kind of wild and romantic. 
They wasn't near as high as the Sierras in Californy, 
but they were about as high as the foothills of the 
Sierras ; but someway they didn't make a feller feel 
lonely like the Sierras or the Rockies do. But, to 
tell you the truth, pardner, I wasn't feeling very ro- 
mantic just then. I was hankering after a good 
square meal more than scenery, for it seemed to me 
like I hadn't eaten a square meal in six months, and 
my head was that wrong I didn't know whether I 
was on the ship ten days or ten months. I was kind 
of twisted, and kin you blame me? It seemed to 
me like I didn't have no innards at all, no gizzard, 
no heart and no nothing, and I was just aching to 



SI 

git on dry land. Scenery is very nice to look at 
when youv'e got your belly full of good chuck and 
kin lay off on your back somewheres and take it all 
in, easy like, and then turn over and take a snooze ; 
but a feller don't hanker after it when his system's 
out of whack and his mind ain't right. 

About ten A.M. I notices a little steamer shoot 
out from a dock at Greenock, and she makes a bee- 
line for us, as if she was going ter run us down. 
If we wasn't so big, and she wasn't so little, you 
might have thought that she was going to run into 
us, but when she got within about a hundred yards 
of us she slowed a little to show that she wasn't 
thinkin of suicide just then. One of the jackies 
said she was comin to take us ashore. She was, hey ! 
Well, she couldn't take me too quick, I kin tell you 
that. Ef I kin only git my feet onto dry land once 
more, yer'll never ketch me on the water again, 
not if I kin help it. I knowed before I started 
that water wouldn't agree with me, but I didn't 
know it would make me feel as bad as I did. When 
the little steamer came up close I took a squint at 
her, and I kin truly say I never seen nothing in the 
shape of a boat like her. She was about as high as 
a tug from the water, and she was long and narrow 
and painted black. She was a little side-wheeler, 
but she could go mighty fast. She wasn't pooty, 
but oh, my ! Well, that's what I wanted ; some- 
thing that could go and wasn't traveling on its shape. 
She came up alongside of us and hitched on, and 
yer ought ter have seen us cattle scoot on board of 
her. Did yer ever see a lot of cattle make a shoot 
out of a kerrell ? Well, that was us. I was in the 



52 

thick of the bunch, and was as hot as any of 'em to 
git on board the Httle steamer. After the passen- 
gers and their baggage was all abo'ard there wasn't 
room enough ter sling a cat in, but I was willing to 
swim ashore as long as I got there. " Toot ! toot !'' 
says the little steamer, and off she pops for the 
land. " Good-bye, old Furnessia, good-bye ! I've 
haven't got nothing against yer, but I'm glad to get 
rid of yer " We leaves the old ship behind, and in 
ten minutes or so the little black witch of a steamer 
humps herself into her dock at Greenock. She lands 
at a place they calls the Princess Pier, which is a 
long stone street, like a Mississippi levee, that slopes 
up from the water, and on top of the levee stands a 
fine big building, which is the Castle Garden of 
Glasgow. All the emigrants lands there. As soon 
as the gang plank is thrown out we all makes a 
break for dry land, and I felt shaky when I struck 
it. It seemed ter me I never was on dry land be- 
fore. A lot of people was standing around on the 
levee taking a look at the kind of queer fish we was, 
and there was also a lot of cabbies there, who stood 
by quite respectable like and put their hands to their 
caps and didn't say a word. If them was American 
hack-drivers they would have tumbled over each 
other to grab people and rush them into their hacks, 
or they would have been shouting till they got 
black in the face, *' cab ! kerriage ! hack!" A lot 
newsboys was there, too, trying to sell the Glasgo 
Morning Nip and the Daily Bladder, and they was 
shouting for fair. Their language was peculiar, 
mighty peculiar. I couldn't make out a word they 
were saying, for their accent was too rich for me. 



53 

As soon as them little buggars clapt their eyes on 
me they knowed I was a greenhorn, and they began 
to yell to each other to git onter me, and they yelled 
and jeered. I had a mind to give some of them a 
hist in the breeches, but its no use foolin with kids, 
for the more you fools with 'em the worse they git. 
I walked on like as I didn't hear nothing, but I seen 
some grown folks looking at me and smiling, too. I 
never knew before that there was anything funny 
about me. 

We emigrants was steered into the custom-house 
to git our baggage examined and to see if we smug- 
gled anything ashore. We was put into a long room, 
and we all had to stand by our baggage. Custom 
officers went around very quiet like and sized people 
up carefully, and they didn't say nothing but just 
looked. One chap asked me kind of off-hand like, 
like he didn't care a cuss, " where's your baggage, 
young feller? " and I told him kind of shaky-like, 
" I ain't got none." He just eyed me, and turned 
on his heel and walked off. I didn't smuggle 
nothing ashore, so help me. A jackey on board 
asked me to take a pound of tobacco on shore for 
him, but another chap what I asked about it told 
me I might get into trouble, so I didn't 
take it. I didn't want to git in no trouble 
with no one. After the baggage was examined, a 
door at the other end of the pen was opened and 
then we emigrants made a rush into a place what I 
soon seen was a railroad depot. It was the funniest 
depot I ever seen. It was a big one, but it was 
mighty foreign-looking. On tother side, as you 
went in, it was a blank stone wall, with nothing on 



54 

it except queer foreign advertisements, and on this 
side was queer-looking waiting rooms, a place they 
called a buffet, another place they called a luggage 
room, a telegraph room, &c. There was railroad 
tracks there, too, and something on 'em that looked 
like cars. When I looked at them things and seen 
they was cars, I stared at them like a pig what's got 
its head ketched between two fence rails and can't 
move and kin only stare. Call them things cars? 
Well, may I be blowed ! Hold me, pardner, hold me ! 
I'm going ter faint. Say, they was nothing but 
stage coaches, strung together on a lot of car wheels, 
and there was no bumpers there, no brake-beams, 
no blind baggage, no vestibules, no nothing. When 
I seen them my jaw fell. How am I going ter 
travel around the country if there ain't no brakes, 
no place where you kin git on top of the cars, no 
bumpers and no blind baggage even ? The heart 
was took clean out of me. I was terrible disap- 
pointed. I was sorry before that 1 left home, and I 
was sorrier now. Oh, if I had only knowed how 
things was beforehand you wouldn't have ketched 
me in Yurrup. If I had the mon. I'd go straight 
home again, but I hadn't. The passengers all made 
a break for the cars and I followed 'em, for I didn't 
want to git left in a strange town. We was all going 
to Glasgow, which was 25 miles from Greenock, a 
chap told me. Six passengers was in the car I was 
in, which was all it would hold, and some of the 
other passengers was rushing around the depot like 
cockroaches in distress ter see which car they was 
ter get in. When all was set the conductor tooted 
his horii, a bell clanged, the engine squeaked like a 



55 

rat, and off we was for Glasgow. The engine looked 
like a toy, but she could go like a streak. She 
yanked us through about half a dozzen tunnels, 
which was dark as a pocket, and yet there was no 
light in our car. That would be a good place to go 
through a feller if he had money, I thought to my- 
self. When we came out of the tunnels we clatter- 
clatter-clattered through the country as if the divil 
was after us. On our left side was hills and on our 
right side was a plain, with a river rolling through 
it. I asked a Scotchman sitting next to me what 
river that was and he said '' the River Clyde." *' You 
mean the Clyde River, don't you, neighbor?" says I : 
" No," says he kind of gruff-like, " I means just what 
I says ; they calls it the River Clyde." " Foreigners 
don't know much," says 1, to myself, when they puts 
the cart before the horse like that. How would 
that sound if you said the River Mississippi, the 
River Ohio, the River Missouri, &c. ? I'm sorry I 
come. I guess me and the foreigners won't agree 
no more then me and ships do. We scooted along 
the River Clyde for quite aways, and we passed 
some mighty ornery-looking villages with jaw- 
breaking names and some pretty decent looking 
towns. We also seen green fields, cow pastures, 
medders, woodlands ; and on we clattered like an old 
tin pan for about an hour till we rolled into a mighty 
high-toned station in Glasgow what they called St. 
Enoch Station. We was at our journey's end. Was 
I happy? Can't say as I was. I was beginning to 
git shaky about foreign countries, for they wasn't 
what they was cracked up to be. I read about 'em 
in books, but they wasn't nothing like that at all. 



56 

The books don't tell what they do to you on the 
ships, how the sea ketches you, the way foreigners 
talks and acts, &c. If I had enough money I would 
have scooted home like a streak. "All out for 
Glasgow ! " is the cry, and out I goes. 

I thought Glasgow was quite a place, a kind of 
big country town, but when I seen it I wilted and 
got scared. May I never live to eat another meal if 
it ain't as big as New York and maybe bigger. Gee 
whiz wasn't I surprised when 1 seen it. No one told 
me it was so big. When I come out of the station 
and looked around me, I felt like a baby what's 
just opened its eyes in a new world I didn't 
know where I was at. The houses was differ- 
ent, the stores was different, the people was 
different, the streets was different, even the 
purps was different. They all was Scotch. Oh, 
Lordy ! what's going to become of me in this 
strange place ? Where shall I go ? Who will I 
speak to ? What will I do ? The people that went 
by looked at me as if I was a monkey in a menagerie, 
and they could tell immejately that I was a foreign- 
er. Some grinned and some just stared and some 
was wonderin perhaps how I got loose. I didn't say 
nothing, though, but just went on and minded my 
own business. The stores and the names on them 
took my time. A store that I would call a butcher- 
shop they called a flesher; a place that a civilized 
American would call a dry goods store they called a 
drapers ; what any decent American chap would 
call a gent's furnishing store they called a haber- 
dasher, &c. Say, am I standin on my head or my 
feet ? I can't begin to tell you how surprised I was 



57 

ner how queer I felt. I seen cars go by what had 
three horses harnessed to 'em abreast, and mighty 
fine big horses they was too. On top of the cars 
was seats, and you kin believe me or not, but I seen 
ladies jump on and off the cars while they was in 
motion and they lit graceful, too. Then there was 
big, lumberin' omnibusses till you couldn't rest, 
drug by big horses too, and little bits of carriages 
drug by Shetland ponies that wasn't knee-high to a 
grasshopper, and in the little carriages sat big men 
that was able to carry the Shetland ponies, cart and 
all. And then there was queer looking carts that 
they called " sweet milk carts," and I was wonder- 
ing if they had any sour milk carts too ; and then 
there was queer looking butcher carts and baker 
wagons ; and there was trucks too, that was just 
like the " floats " they have down in New Orleans. 
1 never seen such queer rigs. The cops what I seen, 
at first I thought was soldiers, for they had on hel- 
mets that was strapped under their nose and short 
capes, but they was fine big fellers, and I hoped 
none would tackle me. Even the purps that was 
sashaying around in the streets had a foreign look, 
and you could tell in a minute they wasn't Amer- 
ican. Everything was Scotch. The names on the 
stores was Scotch, people talked Scotch, they 
dressed Scotch, they wore Scotch caps, they laughed 
Scotch, they had Scotch ways, and they was Scotch 
all over. I was in the tony part of Glasgow now, 
and the stores around St. Enoch station was way 
up. The show windows was decked out fine and 
there was mighty fine fruit stores there, fish stores, 
bookstores, restaurants, dry-good stores, variety 

5 



stores, clothing stores, etc. I looked in some of the 
store windows and I seen that there was a darn 
sight more in the windows then there was in 
the stores, for the stores was narrow and there 
wasn't no shelfs there to speak of. When I looked 
in some of the restaurant windows my teeth water- 
ered, and I kind of remembered that I needed a 
square meal in my business, and needed it bad. 
The restaurants around there was a little too tony 
for me though, so I kind of thought I'd make tracks 
where there was less plate glass and less high-toned 
vittels and cheaper prices. With that idea in my 
mind I lights out bravely for some eating-joint 
what's suitable for a poor feller like me. 



59 



CHAPTER VI. 

gittin' a square meal. 

While sashaying around the Glasgow streets in 
the neighborhood of the St. Enoch railroad station 
I got lost the first thing, for the sreets were short 
and wound around in such a way that I soon found 
ijiyself in the same place I started from. This hap- 
pened twice, and I began to think I was a tender- 
foot of the worst kind. All the streets around there 
was kind of high toned it seemed ter me, and I 
wanted to git where they wasn't so high-toned. I 
didn't like to ask no one, for I didn't like to let on 
that I was a tenderfoot, and I didn't want to git in 
with no bums around there by asking questions. 
After floundering around for quite a while 1 come 
to a high-toned street what they calls Argyle street, 
and say, it was a beaut. There was the grandest 
shops there I ever seed, and the whole street on 
both sides was full of 'em' as far as you could see. 
Oh what nifty clothing stores was there, and dry- 
good stores, and book and pictur stores, and jewelry 
stores, and candy stores, and tobacco stores, and 
hat stores, &c., and the windows was piled thick 
with goods. I couldn't help looking in 'em they was 
so fine. The clothing stores especially got ter my 
collar button, and if I only had the mon. I would 
have gone inter one of 'em and bought a nice suit 
of clothes. They was awful cheap. You could 
have bought a dude-like tweed suit, and a loo-loo 
too, I'm telling you, for twenty shilling, which is five 



6q 

dollars, and a fine pair of britches for two dollars. 
Oh, I felt bad because I didn't have the mon. to 
spare. I only had five dollars and I didn't want to 
blow all that in for clothes. I wanted ter go in one 
store and buy some tobacco but I seen in the win- 
dow that it cost eight cents an ounce, and that was 
the cheapest; eight cents an ounce! Holey Geeru- 
salem ! Say, pardner, I kin git two ounces for a 
nickel at home, so what would I wanter be payin 
8 cents an, ounce for it for ? Eight cents an ounce, 
hey! Too steep! They called their tobacco by 
mighty queer names ; there was Bailey Nicol Jarvie, 
Arymatic Mixture, Tarn O'Shanter, Starboard Navy, 
&c., and it all looked nice, but I made up my mind I'd 
take it out in looking, for how did I know I could 
earn any money in that strange country. Better 
hold on ter what you got till you sees how the 
land lays, thinks I. I meanders along Argyle street 
feelin' as queer as a feller what's landed in another 
world. There was a tremenjus traffic on that street 
— tremenjus. There was that many rigs of all kinds, 
you couldn't cross the street without almost gittin' 
runned over, and the sidewalks on both sides was 
jammed with people. I never knowed there was so 
many Scotchmen alive, and Scotch women, too. 
The woods was full of 'em When I seen the way 
some of 'em looked and the way they taiked I al- 
most died laughin. Aint there funny folks in this 
world ? Say, pardner, ycr kin believe me or not, 
some of the Scotch gals is peaches. They's mostly 
blonds, though lots of 'em is brunetts, and they 
makes a feller feel good all over ter see 'em. Every- 
one of 'em has got a accent, and its a strong one 



6i 

too. Guess I'll have to scrape up an acquaintance 
with some of 'em. The only thing about me is, 
I'm kind of bashful in coming forward. I keeps on 
walking and walking and soon comes to a museom, 
in front of which was big pictures, and there was 
some kind of a hand-organ playing inside. I wants 
ter stop and take it all in, but the crowd pushes me 
on and I don't git no show. Museoms gits ter my 
collar button every time, especially when there is 
cow-boys there and double-headed calfs and sich 
things. I seen a cow in a museom onct what had 
two heads and two tails. Beat that, will yer ! Pooty 
soon I comes along a great big stone tower that 
stands right on the sidewalk, only the walls is hol- 
lowed out so as to let people pass through. It was 
an old timer and looked like it was built before the 
flood. It made me think of Nights — them, kind of 
fellers what used to go riding around on horse back 
dressed in armor and did fighting, and rescued chips 
in distress. I guess there's no Nights nowadays in 
Scotland. I seen fellers there though in what they calls 
kilts, but no Nights on horse-back. When I goes 
through that tower I gits to a pretty broad street, 
down which I walks and keeps my eyes peeled for 
a restaurant. I sees some there, but they all looks 
too high-toned fer me. This big broad street I now 
come to they called Saltmarket street, but I couldn't 
see no salt-market on it, ner any other kind of a 
market. There was a lot of second-hand clothing 
stores there though, and I was expectin to see shee- 
nies there and puller-ins, buc the chaps what run 
them places was Scotch. I seen one sheeny place 
there and that was all. ■ You don't see no second- 



62 

hand clothing stores in this country what aint run 
by sheenies — mighty few. One Scotch chap tackled 
me on the street when I went past his place and 
asked me if I ^didn't want ter buy a nice suit of 
clothes. I asked him if he trusts. He said no, and that 
settled it. We couldn't do no business. Around 
Saltmarket street, there was a lot of little streets, 
and alleys that twisted in and out like a corkscrew, 
and in 'em was a fine lot of bricky-brack houses in 
which poor folks lived. This was the spot I was 
looking for. Now for a restaurant, thinks I. Sure 
enough, on one of the little streets I spies a place 
where there is a sign, on which it says, " Working- 
man's Dining Room." That was the place I was 
looking for. I'm a working man, aint I? I works 
when I gits a job. The building was of white stone 
and was broad and had two-show windows in the 
front of it, in which was vittels of all kinds. In one 
window was big cakes like flap-jacks, only they was 
bigger and thicker and was called '' scorns."' They 
was sold for two cents each, and they's mighty fillin, 
I can tell you, for I've tried 'em ; but there's soda 
in Vm, and that works a feller. Then there was 
biskits in that same window and cakes of different 
kinds. In the other window was big jints of meat, 
hog meat done up in different ways, some kind of 
dumpling they called meat puddings, &c. I licked 
my chops when I seen all this layout. There was 
a bill of fare in the window on which it said that 
tea was 2 cents a cup, coffee ditto, porridge and 
milk ditto, sandwiches 3 and 4 cents, eggs 2 cents, 
ham and eggs 16 cents, broth 2 cents, pea soup 2 
cents, potato soup 2 cents, beefsteak pudding 4 



63 

cents, sassage 2 cents, coUops 4 and 6 cents, (I guess 
the painter made a mistake and ought to painted 
scollops instead of collops) dessert puddings 2 cents, 
fish suppers 8 and 12 cents, tripe suppers ditto, &c. 
Grub is pooty cheap in Glasgow, thinks I. " Lem- 
me see now," says I to myself, " what'll I tackle ?" 
While I was thinking the thing over a lady comes 
up ter me and speaks ter me. She was poor but 
she wasn't bad looking, and she was dressed Scotch- 
like, with a plaid shawl thrown over her head. 
Pardner, yer kin believe me or not, but if she didn't 
ask me to take her in and treat her to a square meal, 
you can shoot me. I couldn't understand a quarter 
what she said, but I could make out what she 
wanted. I began chinning her and she comes up 
close to me and then I smells that she was full of 
Scotch bug juice. At first I was going to ask her 
in, but when I smelt the booze and knew she was 
more ner full of it, I made up my mind I wouldn't. I 
says to her, ** I am busted, old gal ; only for that I'd 
take you in." She didn't understand me, but kept 
jabberin away, and the first thing I knowed she 
called me a bully. That got me off. I says to her : 
'' See here, old gal ! Don't git too gay, now, and 
begin calling names. I aint bullying you, am I ?" 
She didn't know what I was saying, but she saw 
that I was gitting huffy, so she began to jabber 
harder than ever. I was gittin tired of her blarney 
by this time, so I sneaks in the restaurant and lets 
her stand there. 

The joint was a queer one and wasn't nothing 
like an American one. There wasn't one long room 
in it with a lot of tables and chairs in itj but tke 



64 

place was divided off into little rooms with wooden 
pertitions, and in each room there was a rough 
wooden table without no cloth on it, and a rough 
wooden bench, which was narrow. There wasn't 
room enough hardly to stand in in on^ of them 
little rooms except at the door what opened into it, 
but it was private like. A feller could go in there 
and shut the door and eat all alone if he wanted ter. 
If a feller don't like company that's the kind of 
a joint ter go into. I went in and sot down 
at the table in one of the rooms. I wasn't expectin 
company, but I got it just the samee. I hadn't no 
more then sot down when the lady what tackled 
me outside of the joint opened the door, come in 
and sot down alongside of me. I was that flabber- 
gasted for a minute yer could have knocked me 
down with a feather. The lady began to talk to 
me, but I told her I couldn't understand Scotch. A 
young waiter gal came in and asked me what we 
was goin to have. I told her there was no we 
in this business and that I was alone, but she didn't 
believe me. *' Didn't this lady come in with you ?" 
asked she. " Not on your life, she didn't !" says I. 
•* I don't know her." The waiter asked the lady if 
I was her escort, and she said yes. That got me 
clean ofT, and I made up my mind that I wouldn't 
be bull-dosed inter paying for no grub for her. The 
waiter sniffed at me, but I didn't give a cuss. I 
didn't want to git in no trouble with wimmen the 
first thing when I landed in Scotland. I wanted ter 
see how the land laid first. I asked the waiter to 
bring me some, pea soap. When she went away to 
git it I told the Ijoo^y chip aiopgside of me she'd 



65 

better get up and dust, for I wouldn't pay for no 
grub for her. Do you think she'd go? Not her. 
She could sit there as long as she liked though for 
all I cared. You wouldn't ketch no American chip 
actin like that with a teetotal stranger. An Amer- 
ican chip would take no for an answer, but this one 
wouldn't. In a few minutes the soup was brought 
in ter me and I tackled it. It was good and there 
was lots of peas in it, and while I was eatin it the 
boozy chip kept up her chinnen and got me tired. 
I asked the waiter to fire her and she done it. The 
chip went out talking Scotch to herself, but she 
could have talked French for all I cared.' I gener- 
ally picks my company, I does. I was kind of mean, 
I know, but that chip was too fresh. If I got in 
with her I might have got slugged the first thing, 
and I aint taking no chances. She might have been 
a married woman for all I knowed, and might have 
had a husband around. It kind of upset me, but 
I began to git sorry that she got fired. After I 
eat the soup the waiter came in again and asked me 
if I wanted anything else. ''Yes," says I, "give 
me some corn beef and cabbage." The gal stared. 
That was one on her, I guess. " Haven't you got 
none?" says I. "No," says she. "How about a 
beef stew," says I ; " haven't you got that ?" " No," 
says she. What kind of a joint was this, anyway? 
No corn beef and cabbage, no beef stew, no noth- 
ing. " What have yer got ?" says I. The gall rat- 
tled off a lot of things and finally I says to her, 
" bring me some roast pork." She fetched me in a 
lot of salt pork scraps with plenty of skin on 'em 
and fat, but nary potato, bread, butter, vegetables 



66 

ner anything else. A fine la5"out this for a hungry 
man Scotch restaurants is on the bum if they is 
all like this, thinks I. I tells the gal to bring me in 
some bread, potatoes and butter, and then I sails in 
and winds up with what they calls a beefsteak pud- 
ding, but what we calls a beefsteak pie. I had to 
pay extra for the bread, butter and potatoes, and I 
found out afterward that's the way they do things 
in all Scotch restaurants. I paid 12 cents fer the 
meal, but I didn't enjoy it much on accouut of that 
chip. She had a pretty big nerve ter brace me like 
she did, but maybe she was hungry and I oughter 
have opened my heart ter her. I felt bad, but any- 
way she had no right to call me names, and me a 
teetotal stranger to her, too. I paid up and skipped. 



6; 



CHAPTER VII. 

LOOKIN FER A FURNISHED ROOM. 

After I come out of the eatin joint I lit my pipe, 
indulged in a sociable smoke and made tracks fer 
Saltmarket street again. 1 stumbled on ter it with- 
out knowing it at first, and walked along it fer a 
few blocks until I struck the Clyde river. Excuse 
me, the River Clyde, I ought ter say ; nothing like 
calling things by the proper name. When I come 
clost to the Clyde river and looked down inter it I 
mighty soon seen that its name was mud. Its color 
was a very dark chocolate, and if that aint the next 
best thing to mud then I don't know what is. The 
river was about as wide as the Erie canal, and it 
was fenced in on both sides with square stone em- 
bankments that was pretty high up and looked 
down on the water. There was at least half a dozen 
bridges slung across the river that I could see, and 
they was pretty far apart, and some of 'em was 
of stone, and some of 'em was iron. All of 'em 
though, was mighty fine, and must have cost 
a lot of money. Near the bridge that I first 
come to at the end of Saltmarket street was a 
y big park what they called the Green, and I was 
stuck on it as soon as I seen it. It was built fer 
workingmen and was a kind of playground more 
ner anything else. It was nearly two miles long and 
over half a mile broad, and there wasn't very many 
trees ner flowers in it. Working chaps met there 
and played football and tennis and other games, 



68 

and did stunts on trapezes and listened to the band 
play, and it was just my style exactly. " I guess 
Glasgow'll suit me," thinks I. I went through the 
park and seen a moniment that was sot up for a 
sea-fighter what they calls Lord Nelson, and also 
the most high-toned and finest water-fountain I ever 
seed. It was great, and no mistake. It was all 
full of life-size figgers of Americans and Yurrup 
chaps, and Asia people and Africans and Austra- 
lians, and big basins to hold water was there, one over 
the other, that got smaller as they got near the top. 
It was a mighty slick piece of work. I'm a tellin you. 
There was plenty of benches in the park to sit down 
on and lots of gravelled walks, a music-stand and an 
out-of door gymnasium, and near the Clyde river in 
the park was a stone house which was mighty neat 
and in which a humane society lived. It said so on 
a sign on the building. I was beginniilg to like 
Glasgow first rate. After I seen all of the park I 
wanted ter, I made up my mind to go and hunt fer 
a furnished room. I have slept in lodgin houses 
and other joints at home, but I found out that if 
you hires a furnished room somewheres by the week 
or month and pays cash down fer it in advance, you 
kin save money and git along better. I had no 
trouble to find my way out of the park, (some Glas- 
gow folks calls it the Common, and some calls it the 
Green) and come out by the river again. I crossed 
a bridge what they calls the Albert bridge and come 
along a row of dirty-looking houses facing the river. 
I seen a to-let sign on one of 'em, so in I goes through 
a long hallway what's all paved with stone and finds 
a stairs at the back, up which I goes. The stairs 



69 

was all of stone with no railings and winds up and 
. around like a corkscrew. I never seen no hallway 
and no stairs like that before. I rings a bell at one 
of the doors on the first landing and a lady comes 
to the door, and when she sees me she don't open 
the door wide, but stands there between the jamb 
and the end of the door and stares at me. 

" Good-day, ma'm," says I to her, very perlite- 
like. 

" Good-day, sir," says she, staring. 

" Have you got any furnished rooms ter let, 
here ?" says I. 

*' I hay ae room ter rent," says she, in Scotch. 

" Kin i look at it?" says I. 

The lady kind er hesitated and looked me over, 
and didn't seem ter be anxious ter rent the room. 
After a pause she says ter me : '' Ou eye, yer kin 
come in and look at it." In I pops and she shows 
me a nice big room with a table and chairs in it, but 
nothing else. 

" I want a room to sleep in, lady," says I ; '' I don't 
want no dining-room." 

" This is a bed-room." says she, and with that she 
opens a china closet in the room in which was a 
bunk. Holee Geerusalem ! a bunk in a china closet ! 
what did the dame take me for ; a Chinaman ? Say, 
yer don't ketch me sleeping in no closet when I 
pays my money fer a bedroom. Not on yer life. I 
didn't like that kind of a layout fer a cent, but I 
didn't let on to the dame that I didn't like it ; but I 
says : 

" It's a mighty fine room ; how much do you 
charge for it ?" 



70 

" I ginerally rents it to two," says she, " and I gits 
12 shillings a week fer it." (That's $3.00 per week ; 
too high-ke fluked fer yours truly.) 

'' Have you got something fer about 3 shillings a 
week ?" says I. 

The lady looked at me with contempt and says: 
*' What do you take this place for — a tramp's lodg- 
ing house ? Where do you come from, the noo ?" 
says she. 

*'The noo, the noo," thinks I to myself; what 
does she mean by that ? That's one on me. 

"Who, me ?" says I. *'0h, I comes from New 
York. I just landed," says I. 

*' 'Pears like it," says she." " What did you come 
to this country for ?" 

''Who, me?" says I, kind of flabbergasted, seeing 
she suspicioned me ; " oh, I come here looking for 
work." 

" What's your trade ?" asks the lady. 

"Oh, I work at odd jobs; anything I kin git 
ter do." 

'' Yer a Yankee, aint you ?*' says she. 

" No, I aint," says I, " I'm a Westerner." 

" Ou eye," says the lady, as if she didn't know 
what I was talking about. 

*' Yer know what a Westerner is, I guess, don't 
yer?" says I, kind of perlite-like. 

" Yer needn't be guessin' arour here," says the 
lady, mad as blazes, and she slams the door in my 
face. I was flabbergasted. I didn't say nothing to 
insult the lady that I knows of, did I ? I was that 
surprised yer could most have knocked me down with 
a feather. Foreigners is queer folks, thinks I. They 



71 

gits insulted and huffy fer nothing-. I slunk off like 
a dog what's been whipped, with its tail between 
its legs, and went to look somewheres else fer a 
room. They was all loo high in price what I seen, 
and I seen 2 dozen of 'em or more, and more than 
one of 'em had the bed in a closet. I made up my 
mind I wouldn't sleep in no closet fer no price. 
Why, in America i kin get a mighty fine room fer 
a dollar a week, and if I kin get one here fer that 
price, I oughter be able to git one in Scotland fer 
50 cents, for things is much cheaper in Scot- 
land then in America, I was told. I kept on huntin 
and huntin till I got tired, and the cheapest room I. 
could find was fer a dollar a week. 

Finally, I makes up my mind ter take the next 
room fer a dollar a week that 1 could git, that is, 
providin I don't have to sleep in no closet. I travels 
up a street what they calls Main street, and then I 
gits twisted and turns off a street what they calls 
Rutherglen Road. Along this street is a theayter, 
what they calls the Princess Theayter, and right op- 
posite to it I seen a sign what said furnished rooms. 
Up I hustles through another stone hallway, (all the 
houses has halls like that,) and up the corkscrew 
stairs, and rings the bell. A young lady of about 
thirty comes to the door. I tells her what I'm after, 
and she tells me I kin have a room in her house, if I 
wants it, for a dollar a week, pervidin I'll share it 
with an actor. I was willin to sleep with an actor 
pervidin it was no female one, and the landlady told 
me that the actor was away on a vacation just now 
and would wouldn't be home for two or three weeks. 
the meanwhile I could sleep alone, she said. That 



^2 

just suited me, for in two or three weeks where 
would I be? Over the hills and far away, maybe, 
or in the poor house. I plunked down four shillings 
and took the room. It was a pretty nice room for 
the money, for there was a big table in it, an arm- 
chair, two other chairs, an iron bed with a lumpy 
feather mattrass, two mighty thin pillows and plenty 
of covering. There was two windows in the room 
that looked out in the back, and the room was worth 
the mon. It was the best place I struck yet for the 
price. I stripped off my clothes and took a bath in the 
wash basin, and then made myself ter home. Nothing 
like looking fer what yer wants till yer finds it, 
thinks I, even if it does cost a little more than you 
expects. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

GLASGOW. 
Say matey, Glasgow aint no slouch of a place ; 
there can't be no mistake about that. It kivers 
more territory then New York city, and they tells 
me it's got over a million inhabitants. I don't doubt 
it. It's got streets and streets till yer can't rest, and 
the streets is full of people and thousands and 
thousands of shops and horses and waggins and 
houses and big buildings and fine edifices — say, it's 
great. The houses ain't like the houses in this 
country, for they is all of stone and three-story high, 
and underneath 'em is stores. The houses is all so 
much alike though, that you gits tired of 'em, and 
on top of 'em is a lot of tile chimbleys of all sizes, 
that looks like the pipes in a hand-organ. A hun- 
dred years ago, they tells me, Glasgow had about 
50,000 people, and now she's got a million and over, 
counting in the suberbs. Don't take my word for 
it though, for I'm only tellin you what they told 
me. It's a great place for business and for shipping 
and fer manufacturing and fer making iron and 
steel and coal, and fer wholesale houses, and fer 
capital, and fer banks, and fer shipping, and fer rail- 
roads, &c. The people there is in for the dough, 
though, worst than the blue-bellied down-East 
Yank you ever seed. They is hustlers, but they 
seem ter take things more easy-like than Americans. 
They don't rush by like they was half crazy, but 
they takes their time ter eat and ter sleep, and they 



74 

is always ready ter talk ter yer. The country jakes 
what lives in the towns around Glasgow, when times 
is hard down their way, comes ter Glasgow ter hunt 
fer a job; the hay-seeders in the country comes ter 
town ter sell their stuff and buy goods ; the jay 
dudes comes ter town ter buy their duds ; the gals 
comes ter town to buy their finery; the dukes and 
dukesses comes ter town ter buy their diamonds and 
jewelry ; the country boys comes in ter blow in their 
dust and have a good time, and Glasgow is the 
place in Scotland. I wasn't there a day before I 
seen that. What took my time though, more then 
anything else, was the shops, the names of the 
streets and places, the sea gulls and crows that flies 
around in the parks in the heart of the city, the 
looks and talk of the people, &c. The stores aint 
like American stores at all, for they looks different, 
and is fitted up different in every way. They aint 
so long and wide, but they is smaller and more 
dingy then American stores. They knows how ter 
display their goods in fine shape though, I kin tell 
yer. Yer kin believe me or not, I seen gooseberries 
there that was as big as walnuts, currants that was 
as big as hazelnuts, strawberries that was as big as 
a little hen's ^'gg, purple grapes that was almost as 
big as a plum, &c. They sell fruit there by the 
pound, and vegetables, too, I guess. The meat in 
the provision stores, I seen, made me stare, it was 
so fine. They've got hams and bacon there that 
is a yard wide, and no kidden either. It's all solid 
meat and no fat. The Belfast bacon, what comes 
from Belfast, Ireland, is the finest meat I ever seen. 
Next comes the Ayrshire breakfast bacon, which is 



75 

nice, too, but it don't come up to the Irish bacon. 
The meat is pretty salt in price, for it costs from 20 
cents a pound up, and it's a little too rich for poor 
folks, so they eats American meat, which they 
say aint good and is cheap. They also eats bologny 
sarsages made of meal of some kind, and porridge 
and fish, and oatmeal and short bread and scorns 
and sich. Fish is cheap there and mighty inviting. 
Yer kin git a big bloater herring for 2 cents, or yer 
kin go in a restaurant where they makes a specialty 
of what they calls fish suppers and git a square meal 
of fish and fried peraties for 4 cents. More then 
one fish supper I eat, and I kin say they is away up 
in G. They's rich. They don't give you no bread 
ner nothing with 'em, only fish and peraties, but 
they's mighty fiUin. They give their fish queer 
names in Scotland. They've got haddock and cod 
and ling and hake and halibut and lemons (not fruit) 
and plaice and megrins and salmon and grilse, &c., 
and when I seen the names of some of their candy 
I nearly died laughing. They had what they calls 
voice pastils, tofifie balls, filshells, pomfret cakes, 
chocolate bouncers, frosty nailrods and sledge ham- 
mers, but I didn't see no railroad spikes ner rails. 
Holey Geerusalem ! sledge hammers and bouncers, 
hey, and nailrods ! It pays ter travel. 

The stores was fine, but there was so many of 'em 
I wonder how they all made out. Lots of the 
streets was very high-toned, and there was lots of 
tony stores in 'em, and some of the streets had what 
they called arcades in 'em, which was passageways 
covered over where people could stop when it rained 
without getting wet. The Scotch is up to snuff, 



76 

I'm a tellln yer, and they knows how ter make 
money rain or shine. 

Most of the people In Glasgow is Scotch, but 
there's lots of Irish, a few dagos, and some Germans 
and some Jews, and a few Scandinavians, &c. Some 
of the dagos has queer little shops there where they 
sells soft drinks, ice cream and candy, and some of 
the Germans keeps fish supper places, and the like, 
and the Jews run different kinds of stores and talks 
Hebrew with a Scotch accent, for some on 'em was 
born in Scotland. But most of the people is 
Scotch. I found the Glasgow folks as a rule mighty 
quiet and civil people, but they was keen on the 
trade and was full of business from the word go. 
The poor -folks like their booze, and I seen more 
drunks in Glasgow to the square inch then I ever; 
seen anywhere else to the mile. Men and women 
get as full as a goat and needed the whole street ter 
navigate in. Even young gals, (they calls 'em las- 
sies there) liked their booze, and was pretty bold I 
and brazen. They would just as lief tackle a feller 
what they didn't know on the street as not, and i 

they don't know what shame is. Most of the lassies j 

j 

was mighty engaging, and a feller had all he could i 
do ter steer clear of 'em. I 

Since I come back ter America I seen in a paper 
that there's more bastards born in Scotland than in 
any other country in Yurrup. I don't know if it's 
so, but it was in the paper, anyway. I seen lots 
of cripples in Glasgow, and I asked my landlady 
why there was so many of 'em, and she said that it 
was the fault of the Glasgow water, which is too 
pure and healthy. I guess she was givin me a 
game. 



77 

The Clyde river is a great place. In some places 
jt's so deep that ocean liners kin go in it, and in 
other places its so shaller that yer kin almost wade 
acrost it. There's one place along it what they calls 
the Broomielaw, which is a district where all the 
excursion boats land that sails to the Hebrides 
Islands, the west coast, up the different lochs, (which 
means lakes,) and to a thousand places in Scotland 
and Ireland, and my landlady told me that some of 
these steamers is famous and has been writ about 
in songs and stories. I don't think she was kiddin 
this time. She told me, too, that a feller kin cross 
over to Ireland for a dollar, and that he kin make 
mighty long trips in them excursion boats for 2 
shillings, (25 cents.) I seen some posters on the 
walls what said that, too. The Clyde is a great place 
for ship building. I guess they builds ships there 
better and cheaper ner anywheres else, and that may 
be why they get so much ship building ter do. 
There is ship yards there till yer can't rest, and iron 
foundries and shiprights and ship blacksmiths and 
ship painters and ship carpenters and junk shops, 
&c. It's a great place. 



7^ 



CHAPTER IX. 

DANCING IN DER GREEN. 

I went ter sleep early after my first day's wander- 
ing in Glasgow, and I tell you it felt good ter sleep 
with my clothes off, after havin been in the ship ten 
nights and ten days with 'em on. I got up late the 
next morning and was feeling as spry and chipper as 
a spring colt I forgot all about the ship, for my 
mind was full of other things. After gitten washed 
and dressed and going out for a four-cent breakfast, 
(bread and butter and coffee,) I came home again 
and chinned with my landlady. She seen that I 
was a foreigner and a greenhorn, so she was mighty 
kind ter me, and kinder posted me like about things. 
She told me that Glasgow was a great place for 
parks, and that there was about a dozen of 'em in 
the city, and big ones, too, and with more abuilding. 
She said there was the Queen's Park and the Bo- 
tanic Gardens, (which is a fine place full of flowers,) 
and the Green or Glasgow Common, which I was in, 
and the Kelvin Grove Park and the Alexander 
Park and the Maxwell Park and the Maryhill Park 
and the Springburn Park and the Phoenix Park and 
the Possil Park, and the — say, there was parks till 
you couldn't rest. She said there was going to be 
music in the Green that afternoon, and dancing, too, 
and as it was a free show and as I knowed where 
the Green was, I made up my mind ter take it in. 
As it was only morning now though, I could take 
in other things first. I crossed the Victoria Bridge 



79 

near Main street, and then got in Stockwell street, 
which is a business street full of business houses 
and shops, and in a pooty lively district. I looked 
in the store windows and never got tired of it, there 
was so many queer things there to see. They had 
books in one window what they called " penny 
dreadfuls," which was on the dime novel order, what 
kids likes to read, and as my smoking tobacco was 
nearly run out, I made up my mind ter go inter a 
store and buy some. I goes in and asks for a ounce- 
of English birds-eye, and a gal in there what was 
waiting on me takes down a jar from the shelf and 
weighs an ounce in the scales for me. Then she 
tucks it in a paper bag, and I asks '* how much ?" 
" Four pince," says she, (8 cents,) and laughs at my 
accent, and I takes it and scoots. When I comes 
out I sees a young gal drunk not far away from the 
tobacco store, and she was so far gone that she 
couldn't stand up. She was only about i8, and she 
wasn't bad-looking, and another gal was trying to 
brace her up so as she could walk. She couldn't do 
it, though. The people what went by never so much 
as looked at her, but I steps up and takes in the free 
show. The gal what was leading the drunken one 
turned on me, mad as blazes, and asks me 'ef I never 
seen " ah lawsie drunk?" '' No," says I, " I never 
seed ak lahsie as drunk as that," and with that I 
scoots, fer I didn't want ter git into no trouble. 

I went through the heart of the city and came 

acrost some fine public buildings and a public square 

what they calls St. George's Square. It was full of 

statutes of Queen Victorey, Prince Albert, and a 

chap named Watts, and potes and inventors, and it 



8o 

was all real fine. Then I wandered through a lot of 
streets till I gits lost and gits all-fired tired. My 
landlady told me I oughter take in the cathedral and 
a burying ground what they calls the Necropolis, so 
after I gits rested a little I goes on a still-hunt for 
'em. I comes upon the cathedral after losin my 
way half a dozen times, but I find its no great 
shakes after all It's a plain stone building that 
looks like a big church, and its old and gray and 
dirty-looking, and that's all. There's lots of open 
ground around it, but I've seen ground before and 
wasn't stuck on it. The Necropolis is a burying 
ground on a high hill, and it's pooty. Along the 
street it's a wild and tangled park, but as you goes 
up the pebble walks you gits up pretty high and 
kin look down on the city and see a whole lot of it. 
There's graves and fine moniments up there, and 
away up is a peak on which is a statute of John 
Knox, the reformer. I don't like ter go in bone 
yards, they makes me sad, so down I goes again. My 
landlady told me I oughter go, and that's why I 
went. 

After seein the graveyard I came back toward 
home by ther way of the Gallowgate street, which 
is a pretty broad street, full of shops, and I was 
wondering why they calls it Gallowgate. Is there a 
gallows on it? I looked but I couldn't see none, 
ner no gates either. Not far from the Gallowgate 
street I seen a big stone building what they called the 
tolbooth, but which is nothing else then a jail, and 
I give it a wide berth. I seen jails before, and I 
ain't stuck on 'em. I meanders down through Argyle 
street once more and takes in the sights. I walked 



8i 

around till I got tired and then went home for a 
rest. 

Alonsr in the afternoon I wanders down to ther 
Green ter see if it's green, and ter see the music and 
dancin. There was a big crowd there, and yer ought 
ter have seen the kinds of people that was there, 
and how they talked and dressed. It was like takin 
in a comic opera, only the people was dressed fun- 
nier then in the opera. The most of 'em was poor 
folks, and they was stuck on the dancin, and their 
remarks was funny enough to make a horse laugh. 
They wasn't rambunktious, though, and wasn't on 
the fight, but they was sociable-like, and was mighty 
willin to talk ter yer if you talked to them. Some- 
how or nother a feller feels quite ter home when he 
is in Glasgow. The people is friendly and sociable 
and likes to stand around on the street corners and 
chin and gossip, and even the women likes ter do 
that. I done a heap of standin around and chinnin 
while I was in Glasgow. 

When I gets in the Green a little ways, a chap 
was handin out programmes to everyone fer nothing, 
so I took one. Here is what it said : 

" Glasgow Green," 
'* Govan Police Pipers and Dancers." 
'• March, Glendaruel Highlanders ; Strathspey, 
Marquis of Huntley ; Reel, The Auld Wife Ayont 
the Fire ; March, Brian Boru ; Strathspey, Sandy 
King; Reel, Abercairney Highlanders; Dance, 
Reel o'Tulloch ; Waltz, the Pride of Scotland ; 
Dance, Highland Fling ; March, Loch Katiine 
Highlanders; Strathspey, When you goto the Hill; 
Reel, Over the Isles to America ; Dance, Sword 
Dance ; March, 93d's Farewell to Edinburgh ; 



82 

Strathspey, Kessock Ferry ; Reel, Mrs. McLeod's ; 
Slow March, Lord Leven. 

A. HUTCHEON, Pipe Major." 

'' Dolphin Choir." 
'' Glee, Hail, Smiling Morn ; Part song, Rhine 
Raft Song ; Part song, Maggie Lauder ; Part song, 
Let the Hills Resound ; Scottish medley, intro- 
ducing favorite airs; Part song. We'll hae nane but 
Hielan Bonnets here; Part song. Hail to the Chief; 
Part song, the Auld Man ; Part song, Awake ^olian 
Lyre; Part song. Night, Lovely Night; God Save 
the Queen. 

Thomas Ward, Conductor." 

How is that fer a high-toned programme ? Isn't 
it great ? Thet's what I said when I seen it and 
read it. Say, I'm going ter take in a picnic now. 
Sh ! don't say a word. The chaps what was going 
ter do the dancin was a lot of Highlanders rigged 
up in long stockings, but they didn't have no pants 
on, and you could see their bare legs. I blushed 
behind the ears when I seen 'em, but I kind of 
got stuck on 'em. They's well-built chaps, and was 
broad across the shoulders and strong and wiry and 
active. I've always heern 'em say that Highlanders 
kin fight like Billy be damned, and I'm willin to be- 
lieve it. I'd hate to tackle one of 'em. The High- 
landers was to do the dancing on a small board 
platform over the Green, I seen, and the Dolphin 
Choir, which was made up of young gals and young 
fellers, was to do the singing between the acts 
while the Highlanders was resting from the dancin. 
I tried to git up clost to where the dancin was to go 
on, but I couldn't git within 150 feet of it, there was 
such a jam. Everyone was crazy ter see the dancin. 



83 

I got crazy, too. I can shake my foot, myself, ef I 
have ter, but I aint no perfeshional at it. 

While I was standing there in the push waiting 
for the Highlanders to make their appearance I 
heerd a yelpin and a wailin far away down in the 
park, almost near the entrance, and when I looked I 
seen it was the Highlanders a comin, and they was 
playing the bagpipes. When they came up nearer 
the people fell back and opened a lane for them, so 
as they could pass through, and they marched 
through, stepping out as brave and bold as a turkey 
cock, and tweedle-leedin on the pipes like good fel- 
lers. They didn't look to ther right ner to ther left, 
but they just marched and marched, with their 
heads up and with strides that was a yard long. 
Their kilts waved from side to side like a gal's what's 
marchin with sojers in short dresses, and you could 
tell that them chaps would just as lief fight as eat 
if you got 'em mad. Oh, they was fine ! They 
didn't seem ter give a cuss fer nobody, but they 
stepped out and would just as lief run over you as 
not if you got in their way. I guess that's why the 
mob hustled and give 'em plenty of room. Them 
wind bags they was playin on though, got me tired. 
They gave me the belly-ache, and I don't think 
there's no music in 'em, ter speak of. 

It's all a wild skirl and a yelping, and some 
Scotch people calls 'em doodle-sacks, which is a 
good name for them, for its all doodle, doodle, 
squeak, squeak, squeal. It goes agin my grain and 
makes me feel like goin and layin down somewhere 
and dyin. Say, if I had a dog what I thought any- 
thing of, and if I wanted to punish him fer doin 



84 

somethin mean that he done, I'd bring him around 
and make him listen to one of them doodle sacks, 
and if that wouldn't make him lay down and die 
nothing else would. And what do you think them 
bare-legged Highlanders was a playin while they 
kept marchin and marchin around ? It was '' Where, 
oh where, has my little purp gone ; where, oh where 
kin he be?" It made me that tired I wanted ter 
go and lay down somewhere ; and they kept on 
playin it till my hair riz, and I got that nervous 
I didn't know what ter do. I thought of committin 
suicide by jumpin inter the Clyde (which wasn't fur 
away,) but I thought of the Humane Society there 
and that they might fish me out, so I changed my 
mind. That tune got me off, and they kept playin 
it and playin it and woiildnt let up on it. Won't 
they never git tired of it ? If I'd a-knowed this I 
wouldn't have come. I don't see no fun in watch- 
ing a lot of bare-legged chaps marching around and 
playing an old tune that I knowed all about when 
I was a kid. Darn them doodle-sacks, anyway ! 
When the Highlanders, with their sacks, finally 
gits tired of marching they goes ter their platform, 
and now we'll see something, thinks I. The mob 
closes up eager-like, and cranes their neck and stands 
on their tiptoes. The sacks begins ter skirl and 
tune up and the dancin will begin. The Highland- 
ers did the dancin — one, two and four at a time — 
and it was great. Them chaps could shake a foot 
and no mistake. The bags shrieked, the mob 
howled, the Highlanders yelled — say, my hair riz 
so that I thought ^my hat would drop off. Every- 
one got plumb crazy.' The worst of all was the. 



85 

shrieks and yells of the Highlanders. Oh, they 
was wild fellers. They was like a passel of Sioux 
or Comanche Indians what's dancin the war dance. 
Yer ought ter have seen the women there ; they 
was crazier ner the men. You would have thought 
they was lunatics. Some of the reels and strath- 
peys and flings was grand. Ah, matey, I tell you 
the Scotch kin dance, and don't you forgit it. There 
aint none like 'em. They is as light on their feet 
as a feather, and they's soople and active and wiry, 
and kin dance till the cows come home. The sing- 
ing of the glee club was good, but the mob didn't 
think as much of it as they did of the dancin. I'll 
never forget that dancin ; it was great. Them sacks 
makes mighty discouragin music, but its good fer 
dancin, I guess. When I came home my landlady 
asked me how I liked the dancin, and I told her I 
was dead stuck on it. It was one of ther best free 
shows I ever took in fer the price. 



CHAPTER X. 

takin' in a show. 

I kinder made up my mind I'd stay in Glasgow 
about a week, and then I'd light out and see ther coun- 
try. I bummed around the streets and talked ter 
some of the Scotch chaps and they told me that I'd 
get pinched if I stole rides on the railroad cars, and 
that the only way fer me to do was to hoof it. They 
told. me that the cities aint far apart like they is 
in America, and that the roads is good everywhere. 
I'd ruther ride ef I could, of course, but ef 1 can't, 
I kin hoof it. I've walked 30 miles a day many a 
time out West, and I kin do it again ef 1 have ter. 
I wanted ter see a little more of Glasgow, though, 
before I left, and I had some pretty good times 
there around what they calls the Coocaddens and 
around the Saltmarket and around the slums in Cor- 
bals and other places. If yer knows the ropes in 
Glasgow yer kin have more fun then yer kin shake 
a stick at. 

I didn't look fer no job there, and why should I ? 
Didn't I have money in my pocket ? What's the use 
of working when you got money When I aint got 
no money chat's the time I hustles. Lots of fellers 
in Glasgow seemed ter like Americans, and wanted 
ter know all about America. Some ignorant cusses 
called me a Yank and made game of me to show 
off before their mates, but that didn't rile me. I 



87 

got as much fun out of them as they did out of me ; 
so it was about a stand-off. Some chaps took me 
ter be a millionaire in disguise and thought all 
Americans is rich, but I told them that there is as 
many poor chaps in America as there is in Scotland. 

One thing they've got in Glasgow is mighty 
handy and that is public water-closets in the streets. 
At lots of places a feller kin go in one without pay- 
in nothing, and they is all made of iron and there's 
plenty of water in 'em, and they is put up by the 
city. There is plenty of theayters in Glasgow, too, 
and public gardens and open-air panoramas, and 
open-air gymnasiums in the streets fer kids ter do 
stunts on, and musuoms, and its anything but a jay 
town. Its right up to date ; yer kin bet your life 
on that. 

The third night I was there I made up my mind 
ter take in a show. I like theayters first-rate, and 
when I got money its hard to keep me away from 
'em. I likes variety shows the best, fer a feller kin 
go there and see a little of everything, and kin see 
dancin and singing and tumblin and little plays, &c. 
I likes ter go in places too where a feller kin see 
villians and heroes what rescues pretty gals and 
marries 'em after, and blood and thunder, but I 
likes variety shows the best. In some places you 
kin go in and smoke and drink and see ther show at 
the same time. 

I went to the Gayety Theatre, which was a long 
way from where I lived, and I got lost onct or twict 
while looking for it, but I finally got there all right. 
I paid six pence (12 cents) fer a seat in the gallery, 
and when the door was opened I gits in the push 



and hustles up stairs. The stairs was all of stone and 
twisted round and round and up like a corkscrew. 
There was so many of 'em that I had ter stop and 
blow off steam several times before I got to the top, 
and when I landed on the top I was dead tired, and 
my legs was heavy as lead. It was worse than 
climbing up the statute of Liberty. The seats was 
hard, wooden benches without backs, and the longer 
you sat on 'em the harder they growed. We was 
up that high we could have touched the ceiling with 
our hands, and away down below us was what they 
called the stalls and balcony. On all the lower floors 
there was boxes all around the theatyre what they 
calls stalls. That's the right name for them, stalls, 
for they is about big enough to hold a good-sized 
billy goat, and that's all. They is made cf plain 
boards, is boxed in away up to a man's neck on all 
sides, except the back, and a feller kin look through 
a window what aint got no glass in it and see what's 
going on. It's like a long, thin dry goods box, long 
end up. People pays to go in 'em, but I'd rather 
pay to keep out of 'em. A chap in there looks like 
he's caged. A feller kin se'e strange things when he 
aint got no gun. A little kid in livery came around 
hollering out/r<?gram, (with the accent on the pro,) 
and I told him to give me one. He charged me a 
Scotch penny for it, which is two cents. Perhaps 
printing is dear in Scotland, thinks I. Here is what 
was printed on the program : " i — Overture, La 
Puits d'Amour (Balfe), Band ; 2— Mr. Tom Robin- 
son, Baritone Vocalist ; 3 — Drew and Alders in their 
specialty act, Old-Fashioned Times ; 4 — Mr. Billy 
Seward, Negro Comedian ; 5 — The Alaskas, (Jim 



89 

and Warlter,) comic horizontal bar experts ; 6 — Mr. 
Chas. Bignell, London Comedian ; 7 — Miss Maggie 
Rimmer, child actress, and the Forget-Me-Nots, vo- 
calists and dancers ; 8 — Selection, Yeoman of the 
Guard, (arranged by C. Godfrey, Jun.); 9 — La Loie 
Fuller, serpentine dancer; 10 — The Jees, in their 
musical oddity. Invention ; 1 1 — Athas and Collins, in 
their refined specialty act ; 12 — Mr. Charles Cassell, 
comedian and descriptive vocalist ; 13 — National 
Anthem, God Save the Queen." 

When the time come for ther show ter begin, the 
band begun ter play a tune, which was so long 
drawn-out that I got tired waiting for it ter take a 
rest and almost fell asleep. When it did take a rest 
we all braced up fer ther show to begin. No. 2 was 
Mr. Tom Robinson. Mr. Robinson was dressed in 
black store clothes, with a claw-hammer coat and 
biled shirt, and he had a nice gold watch chain 
which he kept fiddlin while he was singin. The gent 
could sing, but I didn't think he was any great 
shakes at it. I heerd better more ner onct. No. 3 
was Drew and Alders, comedians. One of these 
chaps come out dressed like a lady, and I thought 
he was a lady till he opened his mouth ter sing and 
then he gave hisself away bad. The comedians got 
off a lot of funny business, but blest if I could see 
where the fun came in. Their fun was too foreign- 
like ter suit me. I guess I aint eddicated up to for- 
eign fun yet. No. 4 was Billy Seward, negro com- 
edian. Say, pardner, did you ever see a nigger 
what's got a cockney accent? No? Well, this nig-, 
gcr had. It gave me a pain. He was a London 
chap, a Britisher, dressed up like a nigger, and he 
7 



90 

tried to make people believe he was a darky. He 
dropped his aitches more ner onct, and I wanted ter 
go off somewheres and lay down and die. I felt 
bad. Ther chaps around me nearly died laughing, 
but I couldn't laugh. I felt more like cryin. Holy 
smoke! A nigger what talks British ! If that feller 
ever comes to America he'll git mobbed ef he tries 
ter sing. No. 5 was the Alaskas, comic horizontal 
bar experts. They was nothing but turners, and 
mighty poor ones at that. I've seen better ones in 
the Atlantic Garden on the Bowery, in New York, 
where you kin go in fer nothing and git a beer fer a 
nickel. They couldn't do any hard stunts, and they 
wasn't even funny. This is a snide show, thinks L 
I'm sorry I come. No. 6 was Chas. Bignell, the 
London comedian, and he had a lot of ginger and 
talent about him, and I guess he must have been a 
London favorite, for the audience went wild over 
him. They laughed and they roared, they stomped 
and they yelled, and they called him out half a 
dozen times, and he came out every time and sang 
some more for them. I heerd a queer noise down 
in the parquet, like as if a feller was smotherin, but 
it was only a Scotch hayseeder laughing. I never 
heerd a laugh like that before. I heerd a noise like 
that onct when I was dreamin about ghosts, and the 
shriek they gave woke me up. Mr. Bignell was a 
good one, but he couldn't make me laugh. It don't 
take much to make me laugh, but blest if I seen 
anything here yet that could make me. They finally 
gives Mr. Bignell a rest, and he skinned out grace- 
fully, bowing and smiling. No. 7 was the Forget- 
Me=Nots, two chips what I took ter be Scotch;^ but 



gi ■ 

when they begun ter sing nigger songs and dance 
plantation dances, they gave me a worse pain then I 
had before. They was good-looking, but they was 
away off their trolley when it come to nigger dancin 
and singing. They wasn't in it a little bit. No. 8 
was a intermission, and then come a piece by ther 
band. No. 9 was La Loie Fuller, the serpentine 
dancer, and she was an American, the first Ameri 
can I seen in Glasgow. It done my heart good ter 
see her. But what was she doin with a foreign 
handle to her name ? that's what I want ter know. 
Aint an American name good enough for her? 
Fuller had been ter Paree, I guess, and they gave 
her a French handle there. Why don't she shake it 
outside of Paree? My countrywoman was all there, 
large as life, right side up with care, and she could 
shake a foot with any of 'em. The stage was dark- 
ened when she came on, the lights in the theayter 
was put out and she sprung on the stage like an 
angel without wings. Oh ! Ah ! Ou ! Wasn't it 
pooty? She had big white skirts on what she 
throwed around her promiskis-like, and blue and 
yaller, and red and lots of other kind of lights fell 
on her when she danced and made her look mighty 
fine. It reminded me of the Fourth of July, when 
sky rockets and romin candles and blue lights and 
other things go up. Sizz ! boom ! ah ! After I seen 
Fuller I went home, for I didn't take no more stock 
in the show, and the seats got too hard for me. 
Scotch theayters is nice, but they want ter git up 
better shows than that if they wants any more of 
my money. 



92 



CHAPTER XL 

MR. BURNS, THE POTE. 

Say, pardner, it wouldn't do fer me to tell yer all 
about Scotland without sayin something about 
Mr. Burns, the great Scotch pote. If I was ter tell 
yer how much the Scotch folks think of him yer 
wouldn't believe me. Believe me or not, /says ter 
yer that streets in all the different towns what I been 
in in Scotland is named after him, public squares is 
named after him, beer saloons is named after him, 
stores and a whole district of country is named after 
him, societies and lodges and eating joints is named 
after him, and the whole country is stuck on him. 
And just because he writ potry, too. We don't 
make no such fuss over potes in this country, and 
the woods is full of 'em, here. / never knowed that 
a pote is such a great chap till I landed in Scotland. 
Its the truth I'm telling yer, the chaps there is will- 
ing to die fer him, the chips sigh for him, the babies 
cry fer him, the purps ki yi fer him ; there's potry 
fer you, and truth, too. Why would I lie '^ What 
object have I got? If I knowed potry was such a 
paying business I'd go inter it myself. Maybe you 
think I can't write potry? Try me and see. How 
is this fer a sample : 

*' I had a little purp, 

Her name was Sallie Ann, 
And she would only foller me 

And wouldn't foller no other man." 



93 

Now, that's what I calls potry and its true, too ; 
but the little bitch is dead now. If I knowed where 
she is I'd put that over her grave. I think it must 
pay ter be a pote, judgin from the way the Scotch 
folks is stuck on Mr. Burns. Since I come home I 
have been reading some of his potry, but I'm blest 
ef I kin understand the most of it. There's too 
much Scotch in it fer my nut. 

I read that pome about Tam O'Shanter and his 
gray mare, Meg, and I could make out some of it, 
but not all. Tam, as I kin make it out, was a chap 
what liked his booze, and one night when he was 
pooty full, he rid home on his cayuse in a storm 
and come by a graveyard where he seen spooks and 
devils and goblins. One of the spooks, an old witch, 
made a break for Tam, (which means Tom, I take it) 
because he made game of her, and tried ter ketch 
hold of him, but she missed her grab and ketched 
a hold of the nag's tail instead, which come off at 
the rump. Say, do yer think I'd believe a ghost 
story like that ? That's a little too strong fer me, 
I borried a book of Mr. Burn's pomes and I want 
ter show you the kind of stuff he writ. Here is a 
pome what he calls " Amang the Rigs o' Barclay." 

" It was upon a lammas night 

When corn rigs are bonnie. 
Beneath the moon's unclouded light 

I held awa to Annie ; 
The time flew by wi' tentless heed, 

Till 'tween the late and early, 
Wi* sma' persuasion she agreed, 

To see me through the barley. 



94 

The sky was blue, the wind was still, 
The moon was shining clearly; 

I set her down, wi' right good will. 
Among the rigs o' barley. 

I locked her in my fond embrace. 

Her heart was beating rarely ; 
My blessings on that happy place, 

Amang the rigs o' barley ! 
But by the moon and stars so bright, 

That shone that hour so clearly. 
She aye shall bless that happy night 

Amang the rigs o'barley. 

I have been blithe wi' comrades dear, 

I hae been merry drinkin ; 
I hae been joyful gathering gear ; 

I hae been happy thinking ; 
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw, 

Tho' three times doubled fairly. 
That happy night was worth them a' 

Amang the rigs o' barley." 

Now, let's us go inter this thing a little, so as we 
kin understand it. The first thing I want ter know 
is, what kind of a night is a lammas night ? I never 
heerd of such a kind of a night in all my born days- 
When the corn rigs were bonnie, beneath the moon's 
unclouded light, he skipped away for Awnie. I kin 
understand that all right ; that's plain enough. The 
time flew by wi' tentless heed, hey? I pass. I 
know what he means when he says the time flew 
by, but when he gets in '' wi' tentless heed," I aint 
m it. Mr. Burns next says, although it was be- 
tween the late and early, Awnie agreed with small 
persuasion to see him through the birley. There, 
now, look at that, will you ? Although it was past 
midnight and the moon Was a shining, this chip is 



95 

ready ter go inter the birley with the pote. Now, 
that shows yer what potes is. They mean bad. I 
always had an idee they was no good and now I 
know it. *'The sky was blue, the wind was still, 
the moon was shining clearly, so he sot her down 
wi' right good will, amang the rigs o' barley." Wasn't 
she able to sit down herself ? What did /le want 
ter sot her down fer ? "I locked her in my fond em- 
brace, her heart was beating rarely," &c. Sa}^ I 
guess I better not go too deep inter this thing cause 
I might git inter trouble. I don't like ter slander 
no one, but this thing looks bad. 

Further on the pote says : '* I hae been blithe 
wi' comrades dear, I hae been merry drinkin, I hae 
been joyful gathering gear, I hae been happy think- 
in." Lots of fellers in Scotland told me that Mr. 
Burns liked his booze, so 1 kin believe what he says 
about drinkin. One chap told me that Burnsie 
went on a big drunk one night when it was cold, 
and laid out all night and ketched a cold and died 
from it. Don't take my word for it ; I'm only tell- 
ing you what they told me. If it's so, potes don't 
know much. What does he mean when he says he 
was joyful gathering gears ? He was a hayseeder, 
I know, a plowman, and whose gears did he go 
around gatherin?- It's, a wonder he wasn't ketched 
at it. He must have been one of the boys and no 
mistake. Here's another little pome that's worth 
takin in : 

O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad ; 
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad ; 
Tho' father and mither and a' should gae mad, 
O whistle, and I'll cojne to you, my lad. 



96 

But warily tent, when ye come to court me, 
And come na unless the back-yett be a-jee ; 
Syne up the back-style, and let naebody see, 
And come as ye were na coming to me. 
O whistle, &c. 

At kirk or at market, where'er ye meet me 
Gang by me as tho' that ye cared na a flie ; 
But steal me a blink o' your bonnie black e'e, 
Yet look as ye were na lookin at me. 
O whistle, &c. 

According to the pote here was another chip 
that was dead stuck on him. She was so dead gone 
she didn't care a flea whether her father or 
" mither " or everyone else went mad, as long as she 
could see him and look into his bony black e'e. A 
likely yarn, that ! Tell that to the marines ; I don't 
believe a word of it. Potes are darn liars, anyway ; 
yer can't believe half what they says. Now, this 
chip, according to the pote, tells him to shin up the 
backway because the old man was around with a 
shot-gun and the bull-dog was loose, but what she 
means by the back-yett being ajee, blest if I know. 
She aint talkin about horses or cattle, is she ? She 
tells the pote next that wherever he meets her, 
whether at the kirk or in the market, he mustn't 
tip her the wink, but play dead. That shows she 
was a fly chip. Mr. Burns writ lots of potry, and I 
kin say its good what I kin understand of it. There 
is a pome about two purps what's talking to each 
other, a rich man's dog and a poor man's, and you'd 
die laughin to read it. The poor man's purp is 
grumblin about the poor grub he gits, and the rich 
man's says the liven's too high fer him, and so they 
git wrangliftg and ^c^p'. Tiisen thelre's a tAighty 



97 

nice little yarn about a hayseeder (the pote calls 
him a cotter) comin home of a Saturday night after 
his week's work is done, and the pote tells what 
they do and say to home at his house. It's very 
natural-like. Then there's a fine little pome about 
a mouse what the pote turned up out of the ground 
when he was plowin, and that's the time he got off 
that sayin about the best laid schemes of men and 
mice going a jee. Mr Burns was pooty smart, I 
kin tell yen Yer couldn't coon him. I can't un- 
derstand, though, why everyone in Scotland is so 
dead stuck on him. There's lots of fellers in Scot- 
land to-day what kin write potry and good potry, 
too. Why don't people run after them ? You 
would be astonished how the people run after 
Burnsie, although he's dead and buried this long 
while. They say he was dead stuck on the wimmen 
and booze, and that some of his gals had twins. 
That's a pretty tough yarn and I don't know 
whether to believe it or not. 

You remember that chip I was tellin you about 
what was buried at Greenock, where I first landed 
in Scotland, and what was called Highway Mary? 
Well, she was one of Burns' chips. Whether she 
had twins or not I don't know. While sashaying 
around the country in Scotland I took in what they 
calls the Burns Country down in Ayrshire, and that's 
where the pote was born and lived and was buried. 
The Burns Country is a big district, and is full of 
towns and cities and villages, and just because that 
was Burns' stamping ground the country itself is 
worshipped. Strangers travel there from all over 
the wdrlti, ahd thoii^wds ^o tliaet^ eVeiy- Veek' 



98 

Maybe you don't believe this, but it's true. Burns 
was born in the backwoods near a town what is 
called Ayr, and his house is there yet, large as life, 
but it's no great shakes. It's no bigger than a lum- 
berman's shack, and it's made of stone and is got a 
sloping roof. Burnsie was born in the kitchen in a 
china closet, and it was warm as toast there, but the 
old folks was mighty poor The old man ploughed 
and did chores for a living, and Burnsie done the 
same. When he got old enough he began to write 
potry while he was ploughing, but the old man kicked 
and told him he better tend to business better. 
Burnsie didn't, though, but kept on writing potry. 
It was so good that some friends of his helped him 
to get it printed, and everyone got stuck on it. The 
gals got that crazy for him, he had all he could do 
to keep 'em away from him, and some of them he 
couldn't keep away with a cannon, and the first 
thing they knowed they got in trouble. Burnsie 
took to drink to drown his woes, and it's no wonder, 
for big brothers and fathers went gunning for him, 
and made life dead weary for him. Poor . fellow, 
that's what he got for bein a pote Well, Burnsie 
writ lots of songs and fine pomes, and thea he got a 
job somewheres as a excise inspector, but h-e couldn't 
keep it, because he got too Republican-like and 
spoke out in meeting. He was made of the right 
stuff, though, and was very sociable and good ter 
everybody All ther poor folks loved him, even if 
some of 'era did go gunning for him. In his house 
near Ayr there's a lot of trinkets that belongs to 
himj and I seen 'em, but what good is they? I 
didn't take much $tack in 'emi There's a cane tlierb 



99 

that he owned that a New York lawyer named Ken- 
nedy got hold of somehow, but he gave it back, and 
it's now in the Burns Cottage, as they calls his 
house. The cane is like those yer kin toss fer on 
Coney Island, three throws fer a nickel, and I 
wouldn't give a quarter for it. I don't know why 
Kennedy give it back after he got it, for most New 
York lawyers that I ever knowed of will never give 
back what they once gits their claws on. 

Not far from the house is a big moniment what 
they put up for Burnsie, and it's a beaut. It cost 
thousands of dollars. What good does them things 
do though, after a feller is dead? Burnsie would 
have been happier when he was alive if the chips 
had let him alone, and he wouldn't have taken to 
booze so much, but would have been kinder on the 
kag more. Twins and chips is enough ter drive any 
man ter drink. Why don't we worship no pote in 
this country like Scotch folks worship Burns ? Aint 
we got none good enough ? 



100 



CHAPTER XIL 

HOME AGAIN. 

Well, pardner. I can't tell you all about my trav- 
els in ther old country, for this book would git too 
long and you would git tired of it, so I will wind 
up by sayin that I took in the town of Paisley, in 
Scotland, where they makes the shawls and where 
Clarks and Coats have their big spool cotton facto- 
ries, and then I lit out for Edinboro, the capital of 
Scotland, which is a fine big city, and then I traveled 
up the Highlands to what they calls the West 
Country, and took in Lake Lomond and Ben Lo- 
mond and lots of towns and villages, and had all 
kinds of adventures. The Scotch hayseeders, crof- 
ters they calls 'em there, is a queer lot, and I worked 
for some of 'em for my board, but they didn't seem 
ter have no money. If they had any I didn't see 
the color of it. I got through the country as quick 
as I could, and after takin in the Burns country, I 
lit out fer Ireland. Yer kin get there fer a dollar, 
and after takin in a part of Ireland I got a job in 
the pantry on a steamer and came home. I was 
mighty glad ter git home again, I kin tell yer, for I 
was homesick among the foreigners more than onct, 
but they is good folks when you comes to know 'em 
right. 

The End. 



